


Whispers of Antiquity

by getmeoutahere



Category: Reincarnation of the Strongest Sword God
Genre: Gen, God's Domain, Hexcraft, RSSG, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 106
Words: 182,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26230654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmeoutahere/pseuds/getmeoutahere
Summary: Thoughtful Rain is one of the most underrated and yet an extremely powerful character in God's Domain. She starts as team casual and goes on to become one of the Top 10 Elementalists in Zero Wing.Nobody knows her.Nobody knows how she grew so powerful in such a short time.Nobody knows why such a powerful expert stays in the shadows.Nobody knows her secret!The story trails off from the main story line after the original author went off on a hiatus. Rain spends a lot of time doing her own things. Every time she makes an appearance in the main continent of God's Domain she shakes its very foundations!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 87





	1. To Sin or Not to Sin?

Otherworld gate, Witch’s Hill, Star Moon Kingdom, Eastern Continent, God’s Domain.

The shadowy forest swayed with the wind. The canopy of trees reverberating with whispers, chants and songs of the dryads who kept watch for ages. They waited within their trees for an opportunity to break free from the shackles of Sin, the slumbering ancient evil they had faithfully summoned, to safeguard their lands from the fires of the chaotic war that consumed countless worlds. The turbid primordial gas that gave them power beyond their imagination was twisting their souls into eternal servitude of Sin. Thousands of years had passed, yet their pact stood, corrupting them slowly with every passing moment. Their ally and friend, the Jealous Witch, suffered the worst fate in their fight against their protector when she consumed the pot of curse to save the dryads and their blessed lands from the full brunt of its corruption. Her sacrifice allowed the Gods to sever the “Origin of Sin” from this world and seal it within its own otherworld. Every day of her life she would grow older by a week but she never gave up on her fight, mercilessly killing anyone she deemed to be a threat to her lands or a threat upon themselves. Anyone who would thirst for power without caring about the consequences, would earn her wrath.

Her worries subsided when a young adventurer helped her seal the otherworld for good and lightened her curse. However, she knew that she would only be buying time if she didn’t eliminate the threat once and for all. Almost three months had passed since that adventurer promised to deliver 100,000 primordial crystals, yet there was no sign of him. The corruption was creeping in and destabilizing Witch’s Hill. Her homeland would endure and tide over this blight. The cost however, was unnecessary. Lost in her conundrums, she pondered over her fate and mulled over the herculean challenges ahead of her. Her reverie was interrupted by a twitch of her intuition when she felt an illusory shadow pass underneath her.

“Come out and reveal yourself” the Jealous Witch demanded.

Thoughtful Rain was guised under isolation and invisibility scrolls. She froze in her steps the moment the voice beckoned her. She however was relieved to find the elder witch hovering above her. She had been toiling for over a week to make contact. Her labour finally bore fruit.

“Esteemed lady witch. I come bearing presents” she spoke, hoping to douse the anger in the witch’s voice. She proceeded to take out 100,000 primordial crystals and offered them to the witch. The glow in Jealous Witch’s eyes convinced her that the rumours about her seeking these crystals were correct.

“You sure know how to make an impression young one! I believe you need something from me in return?” she questioned.

“Indeed lady witch. I was hoping you would help me initiate my legacy trial” Rain twirled around to awaken the runic tattoos on her face and neck, declaring her status as a witch. She however, didn’t realise that instead of impressing the witch, her action only infuriated her further.

“You dare walk into the territory of another witch asking for a curry favour! You carry the legacy of my biggest rival and nemesis, the one responsible for my suffering and imprisonment. Why shouldn’t I kill you here and stop her seed from spreading?” the witch bellowed in anger. She would never have a chance at freedom if not for the intervention of the Gods. She never regretted the hefty price she paid for it.

“You can kill me anytime lady witch, but both of us know that the witches’ code must be honoured” Rain replied. She knew very well that a witch could not attack another witch in any witches’ territory without declaring their intentions well in advance. Neutral territories were fair game and this was also the reason why most witches were often reclusive and would only hang out with their coven. Any witch who broke the code would be decreed a fallen and hunted by the coven to their bitter end.

“Damn you! How dare you preach the code to me? You are just like my rival, preaching laws and regulations but lacking the conviction to enforce them. Still, I wouldn’t belittle myself by killing another who is beneath me. Leave now and never return. You shall not step into my territory henceforth or you will be exterminated. I’ll treat your gifts as the payment for sparing your sorry life” Jealous witch decreed waving her hands to dismiss Rain.

“You think you can defeat Sin all alone?” Rain asked while smiling softly at the witch. She hoped it wouldn’t come to this but she had no choice but to ask the Jealous witch for help. She had uncovered leads on quite a few witches throughout her escapades, but there was only one she could locate with certainty.

“You!” Jealous witch was furious at Rain. Yet instead of disciplining her, she froze in response. The question caught her off guard. Prior to this encounter, she was entertaining thoughts of seeking Sin out for mutual destruction. She barely had a chance of winning and had absolutely no chance of returning alive. All witches knew that their powers grew drastically with numbers. A coven could triumph over the most powerful of fallen. This was because witches could chain cast their spells in tandem, effectively merging their powers into a single attack that could transcend tiers. The effect was further amplified if the witches stacked their domains, multiplying the power and criticality of their curses. However, witches who could naturally build a domain were rarer than a phoenix’s feather. Even the almighty Jealous witch didn’t have one.

A witch’s domain was like flowing water, consisting of pure mana streams that required constant threading and manipulation for maintenance. This was unlike other classes whose domains manipulated mana through magic arrays resulting in fixed shapes, ranges and features. A witch’s domain could theoretically be customised to serve different purposes by switching the composition of mana elements. It was easier said than done since witches needed sufficient affinity and control over an element and exceptional mana manipulation prowess to make it work.

Jealous witch continued staring at Rain as if she had seen a ghost, wondering how much of her plans she knew of. “You are a mere weakling. You are not even strong enough to die by Sin’s hands. You’ll just become his vassal if he gets his hands on you. Why should I ally myself with liability like yourself?” the witch asked in a mellow tone.

“Then help me get stronger and I promise to stake my life to defeat Sin once and for all” Rain declared with a determined look on her face.

Jealous witch knew that there were bigger things at stake than mere coven rivalries. She wondered why she was angry at a junior witch who hadn’t faulted her in any way. It did not mean that she was worthy of her attention, but this was no reason to stamp her out. She remembered her days at the coven. She was yelled at and disciplined at every step as a junior, yet even the meanest of her superiors had always guided her and advised her in every possible way. Guidance was consistent, only punishments varied.

“Alright. I am willing to help you as long as you can prove your worth. Don’t bother showing your face if you cannot succeed” Jealous witch said after carefully weighing her words. She used her fingers to draw a hex on the ground and blew her life force into it to activate it.

The ground around Thoughtful Rain turned into quicksand, sucking her into a deep abyss of darkness, muck and desperation.


	2. Psychedelic Casket

Rain felt asphyxiated and claustrophobic. She couldn’t even hear her own screams as she sunk deeper and deeper into solid ground. Her trauma only came to an end when she fell flat into an underground cavern. She got up slowly, feeling breathless and shivering at the harrowing journey into the unknown.

The top of the cavern was shaped like a swirl that converged into a vortex. Pure mana elements would shoot out of the vortex from time to time, illuminating the place in dazzling lights. The floor was covered with a layer of mysteriously shifting mist that randomly glowed in vivid colours. The walls had elaborate paintings detailing the lives of witches in the coven, their rituals and various tribulations they underwent, even at the cost of their lives. There was a complete list of vows in the code and dozens of mysterious runes that occasionally lit up every time a mana stream shot out of the vortex. The place felt awkwardly familiar but she couldn’t figure out where she was.

Rain could hear the sound of water streams echoing through the cavern walls. She moved around to orient herself and realised that there were no passageways that lead in or out of this place. She suddenly recollected where she was. The psychedelic casket! She read about this place in a witch’s training journal. This was a specialised assessment area that conducted elite level trials of wits, wisdom and worthiness for the most talented of witches. Raw power meant little in this place. Control, adaptability and judgement was the key to survive and exit this cavern. A system prompt welcomed her before she could calm herself.

System: You have accepted the lesser legendary quest “Sinner’s Circle”. The first step will evaluate your worthiness for the rest of the quest. Rewards: You will be rewarded based on your trial assessment. A minimum A- rank is required to succeed in this trial. Failure will permanently banish you from the witch’s hill area.

“What a lofty success criteria! Jealous witch really thinks very highly of me” Rain smiled bitterly. She wondered if the quest title “Sinner’s circle” was a clue. Her eyes latched onto a rune on the wall. It contained a broken circle that glowed under the earth mana pulse. She steadied herself and pressed the rune the moment it lit up again. A click sound locked in the rune, sending a silvery white beam crashing onto the ceiling. The swirl rotated around the vortex like a wheel of fortune, before stopping at a certain point.

Quest update: You have discovered the Psychedelic Casket. You can choose up to 3 elements for your trial. Trial difficulty and/or rewards would be adjusted based on your alignment towards the selected element.

Quest update: You have activated the Earth Mother’s circle. Defeat your target within 60 seconds. Whoever lands 10 hits on their opponent would be declared the winner. Critical hits count as double.

Quest update: Since you are an unaligned witch your success rating will be increased by one minor rank.

Witches were masters of basic mana elements. Witches could choose up to two elements to align themselves with. Alignment would strengthen their affinity and increase their natural control with the chosen element, and enhance the power of spells and curses that used that element. Aligned witches gained affinity for their chosen elements at every tier upgrade. Most witches would seek one primary element that they would strengthen for the first three tiers before switching to a secondary paired element like Fire + Air or Earth + Water etc.

Rain however was not interested in the basic elements. She was fascinated by soul magic and was keen to learn if she could align herself with one of the supreme elements at Tier 4. She read stories about witches dabbling in the supreme elements but the system hadn’t given her a chance to align herself so far. Her time at the Tower of Four Gods convinced her that even basic affinity with the supreme elements was more potent than peak affinity with basic elements. While her companions trained in skills, spells and combat techniques, she had trained exclusively in mana manipulation and elemental conjuration. Why run after a wolf to kill it when you can simply conjure an elemental blade and stab it through its flesh, trading concentration for stamina.

A gargoyle emerged from the centre of the circle. Rain relentlessly attacked the gargoyle but none of her attacks registered as a hit. An elemental barrier absorbed her attacks even before they landed. The gargoyle didn’t give her time to evaluate the situation and attacked her with 2 earthen spikes. Rain dodged both of them effortlessly. 2 spikes became 4. 4 spikes became 8. The AOE range of the spikes was making it difficult for her to continue dodging the attacks. She knew she had to change gears when 16 spikes were launched at her. She swatted a few spikes to alter their trajectory, making them hit other spikes, and deflecting them to neutralise the attack. She stepped to her side to grab one of the spikes and flung it at a group of incoming spikes. She was delighted to find that one of the spikes had broken through the elemental barrier and landed near the gargoyle. She immediately formulated a plan and ran towards the gargoyle.

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Dark Spirit [Tier 2 Illusory skill]

Split yourself into four additional illusory copies and attack simultaneously. Every doppelganger is immune to damage and deals 100% of the main body's damage.

Duration: 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Tier Requirement: Tier 2 class or above.

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Rain split into four copies the moment she was within 20 yards of the gargoyle. She surrounded it and started chanting a spell. The gargoyle understood her intentions and decided to attack all the four copies at once. 32 spikes broke into groups of 8 and attacked the copies from all sides. Instead of defending, the copies moved within melee range of the gargoyle. Their spirit form allowed the spikes to pass through. Four spikes from each copy broke through the elemental barrier and approached the gargoyle. Surprised by the sneak attack, it managed to evade 8 spikes but the other 8 registered a hit. Unknown to it Rain had cast an invisibility spell at the same time while invoking Dark Spirit. She grabbed one of the spikes and stabbed the gargoyle’s head registering a critical hit and winning the trial. The gargoyle turned into mist form and disappeared from the cavern leaving a page behind.

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Earth Mother’s Blessing (Page 3/5)

Earth mother blessed the circle of witches and granted them a spell book containing spells for attack, defence, summoning, control and rejuvenation. Gather all the pages to reveal the contents of the spell book. This item cannot be taken out of the casket.

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One of the arcs of the circle dissolved while two other started glowing. Two earth elementals appeared on either side of Rain as the clock reset to 60 seconds. The elementals drew their swords and charged at Rain. She knew that her best chance at winning was to deflect the elemental’s attacks on themselves. She adjusted her position to move between the charging elementals. She blinked away just before their swords landed on her chest. Unable to cancel their charge in time, the elementals struck each other down resulting in a critical hit. Their momentum caused their bodies and heads to slam into each other, stunning them for five seconds. Rain was in no mood to waste this golden opportunity. She picked up a pair of spikes and stabbed the elementals to death. The whole encounter didn’t even last more than two seconds. The elementals dropped page 1 and 4 of the Earth Mother’s Blessing spell book.

Two more arcs of the circle dissolved and the last two started glowing. A gargoyle and an earth elemental appeared on either side of Rain. The clock reset to 60 seconds once again. Rain felt challenged dealing with a melee and ranged attacker at the same time. She had to wait for an opportunity to show up. She ran towards the gargoyle, attempting to get within melee range. This forced the elemental to charge behind her. Two spikes launched by the gargoyle were easily dodged by Rain and they continued on their way towards the elemental, forcing it to cancel its charge and defend.

The gargoyle flew off the moment Rain entered within melee distance and landed behind the elemental. She skilfully dodged or deflected the elemental’s attacks. She found the opportunity she was looking for when the gargoyle attacked her with spikes. She used the elemental’s massive frame as a shield and used the shadows to throw the spikes back at the gargoyle, giving it little time to respond. The cat and mouse game continued for the next 30 seconds. The elemental was eliminated by another spike shower that was deflected towards it by Rain. She had taken 2 hits so far while the gargoyle had taken 6.

The gargoyle sensed victory when it launched another 32 spikes at Rain with meticulous precision. It had no clue that Rain had been quietly buying time under the guise of defensive offence. Rain blinked away the moment the volley arrived and appeared behind the gargoyle. She grabbed its neck and sent 2 quick stabs towards its head, ending its life. She ensured that the skill’s 30 second cooldown was over before she let go of her body shield. The final 2 pages of Earth Mother’s Blessing spell book dropped. Rain quickly combined all the pages to view the contents.

Quest update: You have completed the trial Earth Mother’s circle. Assessment: A+. Assessment will be further adjusted to S rank. Awarding +5% affinity towards earth mana, +1 Tier 3 hex Energy Drain, +100 Million EXP, +500 skill mastery points.

Quest update: You have unlocked the first step towards the exit. Undergo more trials to unlock more steps.

Rain was pleasantly surprised with the rewards. Earth Mother’s Blessing were all Tier 1 spells. She decided to learn the spells before the next challenge.

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Earthen Spikes (Tier 1)

Summons 2 earthen spikes with 150% attack damage of the user. The spell can be cast up to 5 times within 60 seconds. Each casting multiplies the blades by 2 while reducing the attack damage per spike by 10%.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Summon Earth Elemental (Tier 1)

Summons 2 earth elementals to fight for you for 60 seconds. Each elemental is summoned at the user's level and spells tier. The number of elementals grows by 1 for every tier of the spell and last for additional 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Earth Binding (Tier 1)

Traps the target for 30 seconds, making them immobile and suppressing all attributes and defence by 10%

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Earth Skin (Tier 1)

Increases all basic elemental resistance by 25 for 60 seconds. Defence against physical damage +15%. Defence against magical damage +25%. You will receive additional 10% damage from lightning attacks.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Earth Mother’s Touch (Tier 1)

Recover 20% HP and Mana immediately. Recover 5% additional HP, Mana, Stamina and Concentration every 5 seconds for next 30 seconds.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Energy Drain (Tier 3 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 50 yard circle by sacrificing 50,000 life force (HP). Any targets that step into this circle will have their basic attributes suppressed by 10%. Targets will lose 2% of HP, mana, stamina and concentration every second they stay within the circle. All forms of rejuvenation (including heals received) will be disabled for 5 x (amount of time spent) seconds in the circle.

The circle can be expanded up to 100 yards by sacrificing additional 5,000 life force per yard.

Duration: 45 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Requirements: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [50% earth + 25% water].

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Rain was thrilled to acquire her first hex. She still had a long way before she could gain enough affinity to learn it. Hexes were the symbols of a witch’s power. They used life force instead of mana to activate. They could be used in silenced or dead zones with ease. The only problems with hexes were their long drawing time which made it useless in PvP, their general inability to distinguish between friend and foe and their futility on targets with elemental immunity. You could mitigate the effects of a hex by gaining resistance to the elements that powered the hex.

“What shall I choose next!” she mused.


	3. Only Speed is Unbreakable

Rain challenged more trials, alternating between water and earth elements and made some discoveries. Elementals dropped items only when defeated without using any offensive or control spells. The evaluation exceeded her expectations whenever she used the surroundings to her advantage and supplemented her attacks with principles of ‘Realm of Truths’. The trial was trying to teach her to fight stronger adversaries using their own strengths and weaknesses. It felt like a game of timing and placement rather than combat standards. Her intuitions and foresight were getting stronger with every trial. She was getting better at deflecting and neutralising attacks instead of dodging or blocking them.

S rank and above evaluations awarded affinity boosts and hexes or legacy spells with S, SS and SSS awarding 5%, 10% and 20% boost respectively. SS and SSS evaluations awarded 10 to 20 legacy skill points as well.

She finished unlocking 20 steps towards the exit through 24 hours of trial. She gained 55% earth affinity and 65% water affinity. She earned seven hexes, five legacy spells, 12 generic spells and 100 legacy skill points. She endeavoured to learn “Elemental Blessing”, a legacy protection spell, and three of the seven hexes.

“Damn! This ‘Ring of Blessings’ is so useless!” she whined after discovering that the 15% water, 10% air and 5% fire affinity the equipment provided did not stack with the affinity she had gained so far. If she could boost her water affinity by another 10%, she would qualify to learn the peak tier 3 hex “Pins and Needles”

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Pins and Needles (Peak Tier 3 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 100 yard circle by sacrificing 100,000 HP.

Targets (same tier or below spell tier) will be stung with pins and needles sensation, putting them in a stasis trap for 10 seconds. Targets cannot move, attack or defend while trapped. All elemental resistances will be reduced by 100. After 10 seconds all attributes, attack and movement speed, reaction time would be reduced by 30% for 30 seconds.

Effects would be reduced by 25% for every tier above the spell tier.

Caster would recover 500 HP for every target hexed.

Cooldown: 5 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 3: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [75% water + 50% earth].

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [85% water + 65% earth + 25% air].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% water + 95% earth + 50% air].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rain had to choose one of air or fire elements for the next set of trials. Three other hexes required her to gain 25% to 50% air affinity. Air was considered to be the most powerful of the four basic elements and was extremely difficult to master. Air represented speed, and only speed was unbreakable! Fire on the other hand represented damage. Most witches chose Fire or Earth as their primary elements and Air or Water as secondary elements. She decided to bite the bullet and chose Air for the next few challenges. Even if she lost a few times, she would definitely shatter her bottlenecks and improve her response time.

Quest update: You have activated the Aerobridge. Cross the 200 yard bridge within 120 seconds while avoiding the air blades. You’ll lose if you receive 10 hits. Critical hits count as double.

Rain was relieved upon inspecting the quest message. It felt like the entrance trial for the Extraordinary Tower in Lost Town. She ran the first 30 yards, casually evading the air blades thrown at her, slowing down slightly for the next 20 yards as the intensity of blades increased. The blades assumed an AOE mode from 50 yards onwards, making dodges extremely challenging. They started curving in from various directions after 75 yards. The blades bombarded her from both front and back the moment she crossed 100 yards. She crawled forward while incessantly deflecting attacks from one direction into another. The difficulty increased exponentially after 150 yards when the blades started accelerating or decelerating randomly, driving Rain into overdrive. She had to make instant judgements as number, timing, direction and trajectory of attacks kept changing erratically. Chaos ruled the roost when attacks shot upward from the ground after the 175 yards mark. It was like walking on a minefield.

“Damn. I need to play dirty if I want to succeed” Rain mumbled. Reacting to this insanity was futile. She had to take risks if she wanted to fight chaos with chaos. She took a huge stride forward and leaped into the air allowing most of the blades to pass underneath her. She twisted her body while still in the air to evade the attacks from below and somersaulted to avoid attacks from the front and back. She timed her landing onto a blade launched from behind her and used its momentum to burst through the exit.

The timer reset before she could celebrate. The bridge reshaped itself into an obstacle course. She had to cross another 200 yards. The spots she could step on was much lesser and eventually thinned out to nothingness towards the end. She decided to play dirty right from the start. She summoned four earth elementals and sent them ahead of her. She used two elementals to navigate through the barrage of attacks and quickly covered 100 yards. The elementals messed with the blades trajectories, giving her a clear path of advance. She panicked a little when one of the pillars between the 100 and 150 mark collapsed the moment the elemental stepped on it.

“Damn those traps! I must be careful while stepping forward” she reminded herself. She sacrificed two elementals to make a path over the missing pillar and steadily managed to reach the 150 yards mark. There were only four more spots she could stand upon in the next 50 yards ahead of her. Any of them could be a booby trap. There was no point in taking any chances. She decided to mess with the system. She waited for the attacks to arrive and commanded the final elemental to fling her into the air with all its might just before the attacks could connect. Rain was already over the line by the time the system could adapt to the projectile. She bit her lips while waiting for the system to evaluate the results. Even if she secured a B for the next 10 tests she would still pass with an average A-.

Quest update: You have completed the trial Aerobridge. Assessment: SSS. Since the assessment could not be adjusted by one minor rank you will be compensated with additional rewards. Awarding +30% affinity towards air mana, +1 Peak Tier 3 Hex Silent Degradation, +1 Peak Tier 3 spell No Fly Zone, +1.5 Billion EXP, +1500 skill mastery points, +40 legacy skill points, +1 random affinity scroll and +1 random minor affinity scroll.

“SSS! Crap! Cheating can get me SSS!” Rain was amazed at the evaluation. She was tasked to cross the bridge and the quest didn’t tell her how. The awards she received were better in both quality and quantity. She immediately unfurled the scrolls to absorb affinity.

System message: You have gained 25% affinity with water mana. Total affinity is now 90%

System message: You have gained 10% affinity with earth mana. Total affinity is now 65%

“Yaay! I can finally learn pins and needles” Rain pumped her fists in the air before checking out the new hex she received.

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Silent Degradation (Peak Tier 3 Hex)

This hex can be used in one of the following ways by sacrificing 100,000 HP:

  1. Stack with another hex to boost its power by 1 tier + 25%
  2. Stack on opponent’s hexes on a 100 yard circle. All hexes below the skill tier will be immediately purged. Hexes at the skill tier will be degraded by 2 tiers. Hexes above the skill tier will be degraded by 1 tier + 50%
  3. Stack on a friendly witch’s domain, to boost it by 1 tier. Cannot boost self-domain.
  4. In standalone mode, plant a hex on a 100 yard circle. The area will be flooded with invisible air blades that silently degrade everything they touch. Targets will have their equipment durability fall permanently by 3% per second in the hexed area. Targets would not notice this degradation until they check their equipment durability.



Targets up to the same tier as the hex would have their equipment attack power reduced by 5% for every second they spend in the hexed area. Attack power would recover after 2 minutes of leaving the hexed area. Effects would be weakened by 25% for every tier above the spell tier.

Duration: 45 seconds

Cooldown: 5 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 3: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [75% air + 50% earth].

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [85% air + 65% earth + 25% water]

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% air + 85 earth + 50% water + 25% fire].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

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No Flight Zone (Peak Tier 3 Spell)

Forcefully unsummon all flying mounts that are the same tier or below the spell tier in an 800 yard circle. Flight tools at epic rank or below will become ineffective. Targets affected by the spell will experience 3 times the gravity during their fall.

Targets with natural flight ability, flight domains, airships and those on ground in the affected area would experience 3 times the gravity while inside the no flight zone.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 8 hours

Class restriction: Casting type

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Rain decided to save the No Flight Zone spell for Blue Bamboo. She proceeded to learn ‘Pins and Needles’. The 30% air affinity also allowed her to learn yet another hex from the previous rewards

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Cleansing Fountain (Advanced Tier 3 Hex)

Plant a hex on an 80 yard circle by sacrificing 75,000 life force. Everybody inside the fountain will have their buffs and debuffs at and below the skill tier, cleansed immediately. Higher tier buffs and debuffs would be weakened by (30 – tier difference x 5)% for every 5 seconds inside the fountain.

Cleansed targets will also gain 5% rejuvenation for every 5 seconds inside the fountain.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Requirements: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [75% water + 25% air].

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	4. Fun, Games and Combat Practise

Rain’s next trial involved a game of ‘Whac-a-mole’, involving 21 holes in a 3x7 array. She could score by smashing the air heads that randomly popped out for the next 60 seconds. Use of skills and spells were prohibited. Attribute bonuses from equipment were disabled. It was a test of her reaction time, movement and attack speed. Chaos was unleashed in the last 10 seconds with six to seven heads popping up randomly. Rain missed a few of them in the last few seconds.

In the second round she was paired against an air elemental in a game of 35 holes within a 5x7 array. She had a better reaction time while the elemental had faster movement speed. They were neck to neck for the first 30 seconds. The number and timing of the heads was getting more erratic with time. Rain realised that the elemental was trying to capitalise on her reaction time to gain on her. Rain melded with the chaos and issued several bluffs, confusing her opponent. It understood her mind games and decided to call her bluffs by the 45th second. Rain’s intuition could sense the change in the elemental’s approach and countered it with double bluffs. She built a sizeable lead by 50th second. The next 10 seconds was a mad race to the finish as there were too many heads to pop to care about intuitions. Rain was able to maintain her lead through the end, beating the elemental by 20 points.

Quest update: You have completed the trial Air Smash. Assessment: A+. Assessment will be further adjusted to S rank. Awarding +5% affinity towards air mana, +100 Million EXP, +500 skill mastery points, +1 random minor affinity scroll.

Rain was disheartened at the lack of hex or spell despite an S assessment, though she didn’t dwell on it any longer.

System message: You have gained 10% affinity with water mana. Total affinity is now 100% (Max)

Rain’s next trial was a game of three dimensional pool. She managed a ‘B’ assessment and gained some measly EXP and skill points.

“I can do better than that” she yelled at herself for performing so poorly. She steeled herself for the next trial involving defensive aerial acrobatics that tested her agility and reaction time.

Quest update: You have completed the trial Aerodynamics. Assessment: S. Assessment will be further adjusted to SS rank. Awarding +10% affinity towards air mana, +1 Tier 3 Hex Air Spray, +500 Million EXP, +800 skill mastery points, +10 legacy skill points, +1 random minor affinity scroll.

System message: You have gained 10% affinity with air mana. Total affinity is now 55%.

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Air Spray (Tier 3 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 75 yard circle by sacrificing 50,000 life force.

All targets will be shrouded in an invisible hallucinogenic mist, disorienting them and dulling their senses for 30 seconds. The targets may behave in unpredictable ways during this duration. High level visualisation or observation skills will reveal the shrouded state. The mist can be dispelled.

Cooldown: 5 hours

Requirements: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [50% air + 25% water].

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Rain decided to learn Air Spray before continuing her trial. Her next trial was combat oriented. She was up against an air elemental that seemed to have no elemental barrier protecting it. It took her awhile to figure out that air elementals were immune to physical attacks and most forms of pure elemental attacks. Only attacks that utilised a combination of elements, energy beams and mana state transformation (e.g. convert water into ice or steam) upon impact, were able to damage them. Armed with this knowledge she lured the elemental into a corner and waited for it to cast an AOE spell. Rain was busy erecting an ice wall to seal off the elemental while it cast air needles. Rain switched the inner layer of the ice wall from whitish snow to clear water rebound the moment the needles were released. The elemental was unable to react to its own attack bouncing back on it and bowed out after dropping a tiny crystal.

Rain didn’t wait for the next round to begin. She started drawing “Air Spray” and powered it as soon as four elementals appeared before her. She took a step back and enjoyed the show as the elementals sparred with each other. Rain wrapped the last one in an ice wall, forcing it to attack it and deplete its hit count to 0. Rain collected the 4 crystals and combined them into a memory crystal containing a summoning spell for air elementals.

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Air Spirit Caller (Tier 3 Spell)

Summons 5 air elementals to fight for you for 60 seconds. Each elemental is 10 levels higher than the caster and same tier as the spell.

Cooldown: 6 hours

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Quest update: You have completed the trial Air Spirit’s Vengeance. Assessment: SS. Assessment will be further adjusted to SSS rank. Awarding +20% affinity towards air mana, +1 Peak Tier 3 Legacy Curse Lightning Sanction, +1 Tier 3 spell Elemental Carnage, +1 Billion EXP, +1200 skill mastery points, +25 legacy skill points and +1 random affinity scroll.

System message: You have gained 25% affinity with air mana. Total affinity is now 100% (Max)

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Lightning Sanction (Peak Tier 3 Legacy Curse)

Summons a single lightning spear that can be used to attack a single target with 1000% of casters attack power, ignores invulnerability, defence, tier and level of the target, and cannot be dodged. Lightning discharges when it hits the ground in a 50 yard circle around the target doing 500% lightning damage and 200% fire damage to targets in range, stunning them for 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 12 hours

Requirements: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [75% air + 65% earth + 50% fire + 25% water].

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate to learn it.

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Elemental Carnage (Tier 3 Spell)

Flood an area of 500 x 500 yards with elementals of random elements. Each elemental is summoned at 15 levels higher and one tier below the spell tier. Elementals disappear after 10 minutes or if they are killed. Number of elemental summoned = 500 x Spell completion rate.

Cooldown: 10 hours

Requirement: Casting type user.

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Rain drooled at the Lightning Sanction curse. It was a sure-kill spell she always wanted but didn’t have enough affinity to learn. She learnt Silent Degradation hex after fulfilling the affinity requirements. She decided to finish learning all the hexes she procured so far before continuing her trial.

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Killing Fields (Apex Tier 3 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 5 yard circle by sacrificing 150,000 life force, transforming the area into a muddy puddle. Targets in the area will be devoured by carnivorous plants 20 levels higher than the caster and same tier as hex, draining 5% of maximum HP, mana, stamina and concentration every second for 30 seconds. Targets who die in the killing fields will have their souls devoured multiplying the death penalty by 5. Targets will have to defeat the plants to escape. Every 5 seconds inside the hex induces a 5% poison debuff, reducing movement speed and reaction time by 10%

The circle can be expanded up to 50 yards by sacrificing additional 100,000 life force per yard. If the caster dies during this spell duration their death penalty will be multiplied by 5 as well.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 12 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 3: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [80% water + 60% earth + 50% air].

Tier 4: Tier or higher 4 witch, Affinity [90% water + 80% earth + 75% air].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% water + 100% earth + 100% air + 25% fire].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

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Rain was thrilled after learning this hex. Forget "sure-kill" this was a "sure stay dead for a long time" hex. She would have to be very careful using it in future.

She realised that only one more step remained in her way to the exit. She had to choose the last trial wisely.


	5. Hex Off

Rain was having trouble choosing the last trial. She took a good look at the runes on the wall. There was one rune that didn’t light up under either element. She pressed the rune to check what it did.

Quest update: You have selected a hex-off. You will combat against five witches of the same tier or higher in a battle of hexes for 60 seconds. You can use any hex in your arsenal to attack the other party. You can use any hex, spell or skills to defend or aid yourself. Choose one of the following challenge levels to proceed: Hard, Hell, Asura or God

Rain felt like slapping herself, yet somewhere deep inside she was itching for a challenge. She reviewed her hexes and selected Asura mode.

Quest update: You have selected Asura mode. You will be up against three tier 4 witches and two tier 3 witches. Do you wish to proceed?

Rain gritted her teeth and yelled Proceed! If she wasn’t good enough to tackle five witches she would have to seriously reconsider her future plans. She planned out her strategy before the system signalled the start of the hex-off.

Quest update: All cooldowns have been reset. You have 3 seconds to prepare. 3, 2, 1. Beep.

Rain cast “Elemental Blessing” on herself. This spell made her immune to elemental damage for 8 seconds and reduced damage from other sources by 50%. She followed her script and powered “Cleansing Fountain” around herself, purging all same tier hexes and degrading higher tiered hexes that her opponents planned to use on her. She was delighted to find that 100% affinity with Air and Water had boosted the hex to Peak Tier 3. She followed it up with “Silent Degradation” and stacked it over “Cleansing Fountain” to boost it to Apex Tier 4. Eight seconds of elemental protection allowed her to buy 30 seconds of protection from all kinds of tier 4 hexes.

Her opponents were tirelessly powering hexes to bring her down but they were befuddled and frustrated by their ineffectiveness. Any hex planted around Rain would vanish instantly as if she was standing on sacred ground. They laboured to empower their hexes using affinity buffs but were met with disappointment when they failed to shave off the protection Rain built around her.

Rain powered “Pins and Needles” on the two Tier 4 witches that were next to each other, and followed it up with “Energy Drain”, “Life Drain” and “Air Spray” on other 3 witches. She stopped casting hexes for the next 10 seconds and focussed on healing herself to recover her HP.

Her opponents mistook as a sign that she had run out of hexes and decided to boost their power by channelling the hexes. They all came together and held hands in a circle to channel a hex at tier 5. Rain however was hoping for them to close the distance and started drawing “Killing Fields” and sacrificed 150,000 HP to power it. She further sacrificed 300,000 HP to increase the AOE to 8 yards. This single attack had shattered the witches’ plans as they not only wasted HP and a sure kill hex but also had to fend off for their lives as powerful pitchers and pointy tendrils started draining them. One of the Tier 4 witches managed to kill the plant and escape 5 seconds later but soon realised that the hex was still in effect when another plant devoured her. It took a spirited effort from the Tier 4 witches to get outside the 8 yards boundary after 15 seconds. Each of them had lost 50-60% HP in the process.

Rain had no intention of letting them enjoy and started drawing “Head on Pike” and sacrificed another 75,000 HP to power it. This forced the tier 4 witches to defend themselves from the earthen spears that started popping out from the ground randomly. They had little choice but to give up rescuing their junior sisters. 18 more seconds remained in the trial.

“Puny witch. You will pay for the lives of our sisters with your own life” the leader bellowed. The three survivors chained their hexes to attack Rain. They didn’t realise that the Rain they attacked was only a spirit replica. The real Rain had blinked far away from the spot and cast invisibility. Just when they thought they had won, the ground below their feet turned into a muddy puddle and they were devoured by carnivorous plants.

“How did she draw this hex again?” the leader yelled but got no answers. Rain was still busy drawing as she channelled “Silent Degradation” over the target area, boosting the “Killing Fields” from Apex Tier 3 to Basic Tier 5. Calm returned to the cavern 10 seconds later as none of the witches survived their Tier 5 captors. Unknown to them, Rain had used “Rapid Cooldown” from her Ice Spirit ring to reset all cooldowns and sent them to their deaths. She had dominated them right from the word go and handed them their asses on a golden platter.

Quest update: You have completed the trial hex-off. Assessment: SSS. Since the assessment could not be adjusted by one minor rank rewards will be doubled. Awarding +1 Apex Tier 3 Hex Life Theft, +1 Apex Tier 3 Legacy Spell Elemental Chain Link, +1 Peak Tier 3 Spell Armageddon, +2 Billion EXP, +2400 skill mastery points, +50 legacy skill points, +1 random major affinity scroll, +2 random affinity scroll and +2 random minor affinity scroll.

Rain didn’t know how to react to this opulence. She started unravelling the affinity scrolls.

System: You have gained 25% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 25%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with earth mana. Total affinity is now 90%

System: You have gained 10% affinity with earth mana. Total affinity is now 100% (Max)

System: You have gained 10% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 35%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 85%

Quest update: You have unlocked the exit of the Psychedelic Casket. You can leave the area anytime you wish. You’ll be automatically teleported out in 15 minutes.

Quest update: You have cleared the first stage of lesser legendary quest “Sinner’s Circle” with an S ranking. Return to Jealous Witch to claim your reward and further instructions.

3 crystals dropped from the bodies of the tier 4 witches after 30 seconds of Killing Fields ended.

Affinity crystal: Grants 5% affinity to any basic element of your choice.

System: You have gained 5% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 90%

System: You have gained 5% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 95%

System: You have gained 5% affinity with fire mana. Total affinity is now 100% (Max)

System: You have achieved maximum affinity in all basic elements as an unaligned witch. Do you wish to sacrifice 100% affinity for any 2 elements to gain 50% affinity towards a supreme element of your choice?

Rain was further stumped by the system prompt. She had finally figured out how to gain affinity for the “supreme” elements, yet she was reluctant to act on it. She had just discovered hexes and wanted to have fun with them for a while longer. After thinking for a while she responded with a “No”.

System: You have 3 Tiers of unaligned elemental affinity. Do you wish to sacrifice this to enable affinity towards a supreme element? You’ll start with 0% affinity for any element of your choice.

“Ah so this is how it works” Rain thought to herself before responding with a “No”.

System: You have time up to your Tier 4 upgrade to make a decision. If you ignore this message after tier 4 completion, the system will automatically select the element you have the best affinity towards and sacrifice three tiers of unaligned affinity. Affinity awards are halved for supreme elements at Tier 4 or higher. Only one supreme element can be unlocked at a time. Attain 100% affinity for the supreme element to unlock another one.

“Fine” she thought to herself. She still needed to clear her tier 4 promotion and the hexes she picked up would come in pretty handy. She proceeded to inspect her latest rewards.

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Life Theft (Apex Tier 3 Hex) 

Plant a hex on a 30 yard circle sacrificing 150,000 life force to steal a portion of life force lost by the targets. You can use the hex in one of the following ways:

  1. Stack with another hex to steal 30% of all HP lost by targets due to the original hex
  2. In standalone mode, drain 5% of maximum HP per second from targets that stepped into the hex area for the next 15 seconds. Targets will keep draining HP until they are dispelled or duration of hex is over. 50% of the drained HP will be transferred to the caster. Life drain effects would be weakened by 25% for every tier above the spell tier. The circle can be expanded up to 80 yards by sacrificing additional 100,000 life force per yard.



Duration: 15 seconds in standalone mode, full duration of original hex in stacked mode

Cooldown: 12 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 3: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [80% earth + 75% water + 25% fire].

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [100% earth + 90% water + 50% fire].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% earth + 100% water + 75% fire + 25% air].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

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Elemental Chain Link (Apex Tier 3 Legacy Spell)

Link up to 25 targets with an elemental chain granting them:

  1. Immunity from elemental damage as long as the chain link holds
  2. Bonus shields containing HP equal to thrice the sum of HPs of all linked targets. Attacks will deplete this shield before depleting any of the target’s HP
  3. 50% of the damage to a single target would be shared equally by rest of the linked members
  4. For every buff or healing cast on a single target, a 25% bonus will be applied to all linked targets



The link expires after 60 seconds. It will be broken if any of the linked targets dies before expiry.

Cooldown: 12 hours

Requirements: Tier 3 or higher witch, Affinity [90% earth + 75% air + 60% fire + 30% water].

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate consecutively to learn it.

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Armageddon (Peak Tier 3 Spell)

Ignites a column of air dealing initial 800% fire damage to targets in a 5 yard circle. The fire circle extends outwards gaining 5% damage per yard for another 100 yards. Targets hit by the spell continue to take 500% fire damage per second for 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Requirement: Casting type user. If cast by a witch with 100% fire and 100% air affinity the damage is doubled.

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Satisfied with her arsenal of spells and hexes Rain exited through the portal and arrived at the otherworld gate.


	6. Elder Staff

“Unbelievable! To think you would perform better than the mighty Kijlstra is indeed entertaining. But do not get too complacent, the next place you will be visiting is not going to be very kind to you” Jealous witch's voice echoed through the forest.

“Still you have arrived earlier than I estimated. I need time to stabilise the primordial environment at witch’s hill and prepare the ritual circle for your next trial. I will send you to my training room while I’m busy. Make good use of this time to learn and master whatever spells or hexes you picked up. I need you to be in peak condition in 2 days’ time”. Jealous witch opened a portal and asked Rain to step into it.

Rain was welcomed by some system messages when she arrived at the training area.

System: Jealous Witch’s Favourability increased by 100 points.

System: Award for successfully completing stage 1 of the quest “Sinner’s Circle”. Awarding +1 Legacy Treasure Chest, +1 Affinity Fruit, +1 Level

“Jealous Witch is really stingy” Rain frowned at the paltry rewards. However, she was amazed when she saw the contents of the chest. There were 3 items inside, glowing like the sun. The first item was cloth armour set with various elemental insignia inscribed in gold, silver and mithril threads.

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Skin of Elemental Origins (Epic Rank Affinity Growth Type, Cloth Armour Set)

Consists of a total 3 pieces. Robe, Gloves and Shoes

Equipment Requirements: Strength 1000, Agility 2000, Intelligence 2500

Equipment Restrictions: Can only be equipped by a witch with 100% affinity towards all basic elements and at least 1 unlocked supreme element. All 3 pieces must be worn together to gain bonuses.

Defence +2500, Intelligence +2000, Agility +1500, Strength +1200, Vitality +1200

When equipped

Defence against physical attacks: + level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Defence against elemental attacks (mastered by user): + 3 x level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Defence against other magical attacks: + 2 x level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

All basic attributes: + level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

All hidden attributes: + level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Casting speed +25%

Spell Completion Rate +3%

All healing and buffs received +15%

Movement and attack speed +30%

Stamina and Concentration consumption -10%

All item level requirements reduced by 15 Levels.

Robe Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Hexathon

Area of coverage for all hexes increased by 10 yards. Life force consumption reduced by 25%. Cooldown reduced by 50%. Stackable hexes gain additional 20% power.

Reduces damage received from hexes by 20%

Additional Active Skill 1 – Monster’s Best Friend

Gives you a 30% chance to befriend a monster of the same tier and +-Tier Difference*10% for lower or higher tier. The befriended monster can be used as a mount for 12 hours. While the monster would defend you if you are attacked, there is only a 50% chance that the monster would aid you in a fight.

Gain +10 favourability with the befriended monster, increasing your chance of befriending it again by 10% (max 100%) after 1 natural day.

Cooldown: 2 hours.

Additional Active Skill 2 – Elemental Shield

Grants you a life shield that absorbs damage worth 3 x Maximum HP, increases casting speed by 15% and movement speed by 100%.

Shield is capable of recovering damage at twice the caster’s regeneration rate. All healing effects restore shield by 200% of healing received.

Duration: 120 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Gloves Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Safer Collaterals

Damage to all friendly units will be reduced by 75%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Precision Strike

Grants a 25% chance that an attack would alter its trajectory to strike from a blind spot.

Additional Active Skill – Elemental Prison

Imprison one target, up to 1 tier higher, in an elemental prison for 30 seconds. Targets can be attacked using legacy spells without affecting the prison. Target must break out of prison before attacking others.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Shoes Skills

Additional Passive Skill – Soundless Motion

Witch’s movements on any type of surface, even at maximum speed, do not produce any sound.

Additional Active Skill – Timing and Placement

When activated prior to casting a spell or hex, the witch would be teleported to any predetermined point within 100 yards. After casting is complete the witch will be teleported back to the initial spot.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Conjured out of elements from seven different realms and bound together by seals of seven witch queens, this armour would be awarded to the witch who had conquered all basic elements and unlocked at least 1 supreme element from their realm.

This armour evolves by one rank for every supreme element mastered. Currently (0/3).

Total supreme aligned affinity: 0%

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The second item was a wooden staff that had an eerie black mist surrounding it. It felt alive and haunted

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Elder Staff (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Two Handed Staff)

Level 120-200

Equipment Requirements: Strength 1000, Agility 1500, Intelligence 3600

Equipment Restrictions: Can only be equipped by a witch with at least 1 primary elemental alignment.

Attack Power (230% of Main Attribute)

All Attributes and Casting Speed (Increases according to user's level, +[Level-120]%)

When equipped (at Level 120):

Strength +30%, Agility +50%, Intelligence +70%, Endurance +30%, Vitality +50%;

Hidden attributes +20%

Casting speed +50%, Spell Completion Rate +5%, Spell critical rate +40%;

Mana consumption while casting -20%;

Luck +20

Ignore Levels +20

All item level requirements reduced by 15 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Nature’s Blessings

Wielder’s HP increases by 5% and mana by 2% for every person or monster within 80 yards. Friendly units receive a boost of 10% HP and 5% mana when in range.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Mana Source

Mana density in the environment increases by half of the wielder's affinity% towards various elements within 80 yards.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Elemental Curse

All damage increased by sum total elemental affinity % of the wielder.

Additional Active Skill 1 – 2 for the price of 1

Cast any spell learnt by the wielder twice or two separate spells. The cooldown of the first spell will be automatically reset and mana and concentration cost restored.

Cooldown: 5 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Invisible Blight Lands

Convert 750 x 750 yard area into a blight land. Two elementals, each 15 levels higher and one tier lesser than the caster, will rise for every death in the blight lands and aid you against your enemies. This is a silent spell and causes no visible change in the battlefield.

Duration: 2 minutes

Cooldown: 5 hours

Additional Active Skill 3 – Death Pact

The effect of this spell depends on the primary elemental alignment of the witch. Bind the staff to yourself to reveal the details.

User restriction: user must bind this item prior to use.

Cannot be dropped.

The staff was shaped out of an elder dryad’s tree while it was magically imprisoned. The soul of the dryad is trapped inside and acts as the staff’s power core. Total of 7 seals exist on this staff. Every 4 months the wielder of the staff would be subject to the dryad’s trial. Passing the trial will unlock a seal and enhance the staff’s power while failing a trial would permanently reduce your basic attributes by 20% and weaken your soul for 14 natural days. You can bypass a trial by killing a target identified by the dryad’s soul to avenge its eternal torment.

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Rain felt a chill run down her spine while reading the description of the staff. She was contemplating the agony the dryad must have felt over the years. She resolved that if she chose to bind with the weapon in future she would locate all the targets and destroy them to avenge the dryad. She wasn’t scared of the trials but her overwhelming sense of justice and honour was pushing her off the edge of sanity. She started to inspect the third item that looked like a tattered ring.

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Ring of Broken Promises (Epic Rank, Growth Type, Ring)

Level 100-150

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Rain equipped the ring and started pumping EXP into it. After pumping 12 billion EXP into it she had raised it to Fragmented Legendary level. She also dropped from Level 122 to 93% of Level 120

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Ring of Broken Promises (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Ring)

Level 120-180

Equipment Requirement: Strength 2000, Agility 2000, Intelligence 2000, Endurance 2000, Vitality 2000

Equipment Restriction: Witch.

All basic elemental resistances: +200 +level

All supreme elemental resistances: +150 +level

All basic attributes: +1500

All attributes (basic + hidden): +60% +level x tier

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Shadow of Corruption

Any hex involving offense, control and summoning will degrade equipment durability by 5 points for every second inside the hex area. The damage will double for darkness type creatures and triple for undead.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Slippery Slope

Enemies attacking from within 5 yards have a 40% chance to slip and fall before landing their attack. Those who slip have a 75% chance of receiving damage from their own skill and 25% change to enter a fainted state for 5 seconds

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Lady Luck

Gives you a 15% chance that all damage by the next hex or spell would be critical damage. Only triggers once every hour.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Total Obliteration

Sap an area of 800 yards circle of all life and energy by unleashing the power of ruination. Every second inside the affected area saps 5% stamina and concentration. Dual blades of darkness and light and spears of lightning ravage the area doing 500% damage per second. A magnetic vortex at the centre sucks everyone towards it preventing escape, while making dodges and blocks difficult.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Levitation Slam

Lift targets within 50 yards up in the air by 30 yards and slam them down to the ground using five times the gravity, causing blunt force damage and stunning them for 8 seconds. Targets will be disillusioned for the next 8 seconds and have their movement speed, reaction time and attack speed drop by 60%.

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Elemental Inversion

Convert darkness to light, fire to water, air to earth, etc., convert the primary element in the environment into its opposite element, in an area of 800 x 800 yards.

Alternatively, you can choose to invert a specific element in the environment in a 650x650 yards area.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

This artefact was forged by the fallen witch Shastraku by draining the power of elder witches in her coven and twisting them into a ring of elemental essences containing: darkness, light, electricity, magnetism and death. Interestingly, Shastraku had offered no resistance when junior witches of the coven had tracked her down and brought her to justice. She had no more purpose left in life after extracting her revenge for every promise broken by the elders. She even gifted this ring to the witch who landed the killing blow.

Requires 10,000,000,000 EXP to upgrade to Fragmented Legendary level 1. Currently (0/12)

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Rain was keen to switch to her legacy epic armour set. Even though her current bunch of epic items gave her better attributes, her armour set provided class specific skills and spells. She decided to invoke the system interface and align herself.

System: Do you wish to sacrifice 3 tiers of unaligned elemental affinity to enable affinity towards a supreme element?

“Yes” she replied

System: Choose one the following elements: space, time, illusion

“Illusion” she chose. She was always fascinated with soul magic and this was her ticket.

System: You are now aligned with Illusion as your primary element. Your current affinity is 0%.

Rain took out the affinity fruit and consumed it. She was aware that supreme elements were taxed 50% by the system.

System: You have gained 10% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 10%

She then proceeded to equip the armour set. Once she swapped all the pieces she received another prompt.

System: “Skin of Elemental Origins” is a special legacy class item. Do you wish to bind with it by sacrificing 5% affinity?

Rain was stunned by the message. After thinking for a while she decided to go ahead with the binding.

System: Your binding with “Skin of Elemental Origins” is now complete. All legacy spells will now consume 25% lesser mana. The armour cannot be dropped or traded.

System: You have lost 5% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 5%

Rain was surprised by the message. The set was useless if she lost even one of the components, but gaining additional passive skill was totally worth the trade. She decided to bind with the Elder staff as well. A phantom of the dryad appeared before her the moment she chose ‘Yes’ to bind.

“You are not strong enough to accept my power. If you choose to proceed you will only find misery and death” the dryad spirit warned Rain before disappearing.


	7. My way is the Highway

Rain was spooked by the elder dryad’s words. She was confident in her strength but she was not an idiot. Their strengths were incomparable. She abided by her advice and cancelled the binding. She logged off to rest and recover.

She logged back in 2 hours later to start her training. She intended to learn all the legacy spells she acquired during the trial, prioritising curses and peak spells over others. Interestingly, the training environment did not allow her any equipment bonuses. To make matters worse it would spawn phantoms to engage her in combat and disturb her casting. This training chamber had made casting of spells at least 30% more challenging than the normal environment. Anyone with capability could cast a spell however, not many could spell like a witch!

Rain was draining concentration faster than usual. She recalled the tip she received from Violet about casting spells. “Meditate and cast the spell in your thoughts. Make sure to visualize the end results as you want to see it. Remember to breathe. Sometimes breathing patterns make a lot of difference in the spell output” she spoke in a training session she conducted with the casters in the guild. Rain closed her eyes and ran through the curses in her head, slowly analysing all runes, hand, feet and body movement techniques. She repeated the steps with her eyes closed.

System: Lightning Sanction activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 60%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 30 seconds.

Rain was getting a hang of the whole breathing concept. She kept her staff and practised the hand and body movements until the motions in her head were almost identical to her body. She tried executing the curse again after a few minutes.

System: Lightning Sanction activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 80%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 30 seconds.

Rain found that her body movements were always stiffer when following something. She was a free spirit who went with the flow. Reacting and adapting were her strengths. That was the reason she breezed through the ‘Realm of Truth’ training sessions at the Extraordinary Tower. Her body flowed like water in response to numerous energy beams that tower threw at her. She could subconsciously react and adapt to air blades and laser beams, making her nigh invulnerable in such situations. Could she reverse engineer and virtualise the air blades to react exactly like casting a spell? She started meditating again. This time she immersed herself in an environment full of air blades trying to strike at her. Step by step she constructed a simulation pattern that allowed her to move her body just like the way she had to when casting the spell. She made another attempt 3 hours later.

System: Lightning Sanction activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 102%. Learning conditions met. Repeat the spell 99 more times with 100% completion rate to learn it. You may use it again in 30 seconds.

Rain didn’t even budge at the system announcement and continued to train in her head while the spell was on cooldown. She clocked slightly above 100% completion rates for next 88 tries. She clocked 105% in the 89th attempt and pushed it through a record 112% in her 94th attempt.

System: Lightning Sanction activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 108%. Learning conditions met. You have successfully learnt this spell.

Rain dropped on the floor. She was thoroughly exhausted and drenched in sweat. She immediately logged out to rest. Twinkling lights and warning alarms were blaring inside her gaming cabin. She felt numbness and twitching sensations all over her body when she tried to exit the cabin. She was tickled when she learnt that even though she spent 8 hours in the training room, it was only about 100 minutes in the real world. She consumed an S-ranked potion before jumping into her bed. The exhaustion was real. She slept for 4 hours before consuming another S-ranked potion and logging back into God’s domain.

This time she challenged the next curse “Kiss of Death”, using the same methodology she adopted earlier. It took her 4 hours to cast the spell for the first time.

System: Kiss of Death activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 98%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 30 seconds.

She managed to identify the problem five minutes later. She made another attempt after modifying the simulation model in her head.

System: Kiss of Death activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 100%. Learning conditions met. Repeat the spell 99 more times with 100% completion rate to learn it. You may use it again in 30 seconds.

She received the final confirmation one hour later.

System: Kiss of Death activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 105%. Learning conditions met. You have successfully learnt this spell.

Rain didn’t feel tired or drained. It was obvious that her concentration levels had increased by a sizable chuck due to her training methodology. She moved on to learn the super rare legacy AOE curse “Acid Rain”. She studied it for a while before trying to build simulations. There were quite a few movements that felt unrealistic. She ran into something similar while learning through the Secret Spellcasting Technique Tablet her guild had obtained. There were a few movement techniques she learnt that were combat techniques instead of spellcasting techniques. One such technique required her to perform an impossible manoeuvre by breaking it down into multiple simpler movements and use illusions generated through a combat technique to bridge the gaps, making it look like one comprehensive step.

Her first few attempts were utter failures. She couldn’t even activate the curse. Switching between movement and combat techniques forced her to commit mistakes. She steadily understood that switching between the two phases could be better achieved by utilising illusions instead of synchronised motion. She made her first serious attempt eight hours later.

System: Acid Rain activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 78%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

Rain was relishing the challenge, replacing more and more movements with illusions to make it appear like a smooth flowing technique. She incorporated three illusory copies throughout the movement technique by the time she was ready for her next attempt.

System: Acid Rain activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 98%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

Rain conceptualised the movement technique using four illusions and made another attempt. This time she made a breakthrough at the cost of higher concentration drain.

System: Acid Rain activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 100%. Learning conditions met. Repeat the spell 99 more times with 100% completion rate to learn it. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

Rain experimented a few more times, tinkering with the technique to further reduce concentration costs. It was only 4 hours later that she saw the familiar system prompt again. This time she was confident in her technique.

System: Acid Rain activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 100%. Learning conditions met. Repeat the spell 99 more times with 100% completion rate to learn it. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

She repeated the feat a few more times, gradually hitting 103% completion rates. She accomplished 106% completion rate on her 50th attempt. Her record breaking feat peaked with 110% on the 98th attempt. Two more tries later she received the message she was waiting for.

System: Acid Rain activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 108%. Learning conditions met. You have successfully learnt this spell.

She decided to call it a day and logged off to rest. She consumed the third S-rank potion of the day but it wasn’t enough. She had to consume two more potions before she felt a sense of relief. She dozed off again and woke up 10 hours later. She felt a pinch when she consumed the 6th S-rank potion after waking up. She only had 4 more bottles left. She had no idea if there would be more coming her way. She logged back to continue learning more spells.

She had finished learning all the curses in her kitty. She set out to conquer various legacy spells, starting with “Elemental Chain Link”. This time she thought in terms of illusions right off the hat. She simulated the movement techniques using three illusions. She made her first attempt 4 hours later.

System: Elemental Chain Link activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 98%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

2 hours later she finished learning Elemental Chain Link with an average completion rate of 105%.

3 hours later she finished learning Summon Spirit Guardian with an average completion rate of 110%.

2.5 hours later she finished learning Entangling Roots with an average completion rate of 108%.

After completing her quota of legacy spells she started to challenge miscellaneous tier 3 spells. In the next 12 hours she finished learning Elemental Carnage, Armageddon, Earth Mother’s Touch, Icicle Shower and Mana Burn. There were still a lot of spells to learn but she had decided to pass on those to Bamboo or exchange for GCPs. She relearned Lightning Sanction and Kiss of Death using illusions achieving major savings on her concentration expenses.

She moved on to hexes, experimenting with illusions to speed up the drawing process. The training room was even more vicious in disturbing her hex drawings. She was subjected to tremors, spikes, random slashes and body slams from phantoms while she drew her hexes. She incurred full inflictions from the disturbances in terms of debuffs and impact force, the HP loss was capped to -1HP per attack. It was clear that the training environment wanted her to learn hexes while in the middle of a combat.

“Your enemy is not going to wait while you spend a few seconds tidying up your spells” Rain could hear the Jealous witch whining in her head. She hoped for a secret hex drawing technique tablet but she knew this was a false dream. Witches just had to learn everything the hard way!

She literally went back to the drawing board and initiated a total rethink into hexing techniques. She could reduce the drawing time by a quarter for hexes that were symmetrical around the centre and by half for those symmetrical in 2 planes by increasing her concentration costs. The asymmetrical hexes were still a bottleneck in her path. She made a breakthrough eight hours later. Instead of spending 6 to 8 seconds drawing a hex while dodging all incoming attacks, she could use both her hands to draw a hex in 3 to 4 seconds. She successfully combined body and footwork techniques to continuously dodge attacks or deflect them while simultaneously focussing hand movements on drawing hexes. She could easily apply this to normal spell casting as well, improving her combat standards by leaps and bounds.

After practising for a couple of hours and ironing out the chinks in her techniques she decided to log-off and rest. She really wanted to impress Jealous Witch and coax her into using the training room again. She would definitely do that after she acquired the next batch of nutrient fluids. She consumed 1 more S-rank potion, bringing the count to 7 over 2 days. She was a bit worried about being poisoned by overdose. Her fears however were unfounded as she slept for another 8 hours. She spent a few hours doing her daily routines and logged back into God’s domain to check on the old witch. Back in the training room she was immediately evicted and teleported back to Witch’s hill.

“You seem to have made some progress. I can sense your concentration is already at apex levels for your tier” the witch remarked, “and you have bonded with the legacy armour. Why don’t I see you carry the legacy staff?” the witch asked.

“I am not strong enough to carry the dryad’s burden” Rain replied honestly. She blushed when she saw the old witch smiling at her.

System: Jealous Witch’s Favourability increased by 50 points.

System: Congratulations! You have successfully completed the hidden quest “Consequences of Power”. Awarding +1 Epic Treasure Chest, +5% boost to all attributes (excluding luck), +5% affinity to primary aligned element.

System: You have gained 5% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 10%

“It’s good to see a junior witch who understands her boundaries. Even Kijlstra would be proud of having you carry on her legacy. Come, the ritual circle is now complete. Step inside and wait for the vortex to consume you and bring you to your legacy land. Always remember that a witch’s most powerful weapon is not her hexes or curses but her intuition and judgement. You can overpower adversaries of higher strength and tiers if you play your cards right” the witch advised Rain to stay rooted to the ground while activating the ritual circle. A vortex of elemental mana rose in the centre and started engulfing her. A few mana tendrils sprung out of the ground to lock her in position.

Jealous witch’s face turned pale when she saw this deviant phenomenon. Her intuition pricked her to blink away. Almost instantly, another set of tendrils emerged below the spot she stood a while ago. The tendrils sucked Rain into the vortex and took her to distant lands before the witch could warn her. Even the ritual circle disappeared with her.

“Kijlstra, guide your disciple and help her survive wherever wretched fate has brought her to. This one is not on me.” Jealous witch prayed silently, hoping for Rain’s safety.


	8. Warzone

“Thud. Splat. Ouch!” Several body parts splashed around when a body crashed into the ground and burst into a series of epileptic fits. It went completely numb and motionless a while later, melding with the dust and gore; becoming inconspicuous, cold and forgotten like the rest of the pile. Rain had a tearing headache when she regained consciousness minutes later. Her body was numb. Her vision was blurry, reddish and painful. Her nose was blocked and her mouth was full of sticky red goo. She laboured to cough and sneeze to get her breathing back. The pain was too excruciating to worry about the noxious stench and the horrific taste in her mouth. She zoned out for over 10 minutes, waiting for her body to feel her limbs again. She scratched her eyes to rid herself of the gunk and goo in a bid to recover her vision, only to freak out at the sight of bloody tears that soiled her robes. It wasn’t her blood.

She remembered falling through the clouds. A huge explosion knocked her out and sent her crashing below. She landed on a pile of dead, mutilated bodies. Bouncing off them before coming to rest inside a pool of semi solidified blood. Jealous witch was right. This place was really not kind to her. Much bigger horrors awaited her here. The gorgeous welcome she received was only the icing on the cake! She had no idea that her intended destination had been hijacked. She wasn’t supposed to be here. There were no system prompts to guide her either. She consumed a healing potion and got up to find her bearings.

There were body parts strewn all over the terrain, as far as the eye could see. Stench of burnt blood and putrid fumes filled the air. This was the site of a battle so grave and vicious that even the mist had turned crimson. It was difficult to walk without squishing some entrails or splotching blood around. There was an unmissable stain of darkness energy lingering in the area. Some body parts looked humanoid, while other parts belonged to scaly monsters. It seemed like they were all slaughtered not very long ago. The fight and the assailants had moved on, leaving a trail of bodies all the way to the horizon.

Rain choked and almost vomited when she arrived at the “legacy land”. She was inside a dilapidated castle that bobbled in the air. She studied the surroundings for any lingering threats. She had a tingly feeling as the elemental mana composition in this place was different from the eastern continent. The three supreme elements were as abundant as the rest of the basic ones. It felt like she was in a different realm altogether. She set out to explore the strange environment. She took a few steps before spotting a pair of huge scaly birds scouring the horizon. They were searching for something.

“Trouble ahead!” she mumbled before rushing to hide behind a giant tower like structure that was sealed from all sides. She was sucked inside the tower the moment she touched it. “Damn!” she shivered at the unexpected event but soon steadied herself to face any more surprises this place had prepared for her. The tower looked a lot bigger on the inside and had its own custom mana environment that was devoid of all the basic elements from this realm. Mana consisted primarily of Darkness, Death, Life and Ruin elements with Void, Space and Time being the supreme elements. Any witch would feel her power crippled in such an environment.

Rain took her time to familiarise herself with the environment and swapped some of her equipment to boost her resistances and power. She slowly and steadily investigated the area. There was a circular staircase going all the way to the top of the tower. There were cells and cages splattered all over the place. All these cages were empty and most of them were broken. She started making her way to the top, searching the entire structure for clues. She found a locked room on the top floor. An NPC stood guard outside.

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Krystal Tungu, Warden of the Coven of Augustus (Tier 5 Witch)

Level ??, HP ??

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“State your purpose for visiting the tower of Queen Asara” the NPC demanded.

“Warden Krystal, I was sent here to seek out my Tier 4 trial. I have no intention of disturbing Queen Asara's rest” Rain explained.

“How amusing! You come to a warzone to seek your tier challenge. Do you think I’ll fall for such a petty excuse?” the warden frowned.

“Warzone? I was sent here through a ritual circle powered by another senior witch. Why would she send me here on purpose?” Rain had a confused expression while pleading her case.

The warden used a purity spell on Rain to verify her claims. An illusory screen played the scene of Jealous witch powering a ritual circle and strange tendrils that subverted the ritual and sent Rain to this place. They also saw Jealous witch blinking away right before the tendrils tried to grab her and her apology for the screw up. Rain felt equally confused and depressed at the mix up.

“So you carry Kijlstra’s legacy! I am sure she will be happy to see you. I doubt that you have the strength to reach her on the frontlines” the warden relaxed after ascertaining the truth.

“She is alive? Could you tell me where to find her? Where am I currently and what is the war about?” Rain inquired. It was good to learn who her enemies were.

“This is the coven of Augustus. Kijlstra sacrificed her life to evacuate most of the survivors a thousand years ago, however her spirit still lingers on, bound to this world until the curse is lifted. You may know this cursed land by another name, ‘Origin of Sin’. That putrid evil lies beyond this gate, shackled to the body of Queen Asara. Those of us who chose to remain have been meticulously thwarting all of Sin’s attempts to break free, at the cost of our lives and souls. For a thousand years things have hung in a balance. In the past 3 months the powers of evil have stepped up the offensive against us. I believe something has irked Sin and driven him crazy. Recently a lot of other parties have also started to take an interest in this war. I believe your coming here is not entirely a goof up. Go find Kijlstra, she may have the answers you seek. I do not know where to find her. Just follow the trail of blood and gore. She goes wherever the battle takes her” the warden explained.

“Then I shall make my way to the frontlines and find Kijlstra?” Rain stated

“Just align yourself with the coven of Augustus and you will be able to identify the enemies. Take this item and pass it to Kijlstra. You must hand it to her in person” The warden retrieved a black cube and passed it to Rain before she turned around to leave. She had a lot of questions in her head but dared not ask the warden as things did not add up. If this was the coven then why wasn’t Kijlstra here to protect it? Wouldn’t it be simple for the enemy to break in here and liberate Sin if they managed to lure the witches away? If Sin was shackled here wouldn’t it be easier to simply destroy him then to face his evil army? Rain decided not to align herself with either warring faction until she had investigated the situation and determined the truth.

When she fiddled with her storage she was shocked to find that the Elder Staff had disappeared. Was it the thing responsible for her botched up teleportation to this warzone? She shook her head to dismiss the idea. She was relieved that she was not carrying that cursed item anymore. She took out the epic chest to inspect its contents. There were 3 items inside: a shabby and tattered tome, an elegant looking staff and a necklace type of ornament.

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The Grimoire of Over-tier Spells (Epic ranked)

A living book that records spells encountered by the user that are above the user’s tier. The user can cast the spell by reading it from the grimoire. The spell will disappear from the grimoire after use. This item can be used from the bag space unless casting spells from it.

Equipment Requirement: Intelligence 2000, Agility 1500, Vitality 1500

Luck +25

All other attributes +20%

Skill completion rate +2%

Additional Active Skill 1: Record Spell

Records an over tier spell into the grimoire. Only the most recent spell cast within the last one second can be recorded.

You'll be notified of spells that can be recorded in this tome.

Cooldown: 8 hours

Additional Active Skill 2: Cast Spell

Read a spell from the book to cast it. The effects of the spell will be scaled to the user’s tier

Cooldown: 60 seconds

The lazy apprentice Sumona created this item to cheat through her assessments. She was caught cheating when she cast a forbidden spell that was way above her league. She lost control of the spell and ended up killing herself accidentally. Currently recorded spells (0/10)

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Staff of Neverwinter (Epic ranked, Two Handed Staff)

Level 100-140

Equipment Requirements: Strength 1000, Agility 1500, Intelligence 2000

Class Restrictions: Casting Type

Attack Power (180% of Main Attribute)

All Attributes (Increases according to user's level)

When equipped (at Level 100):

Strength +10%, Agility +20%, Intelligence +30%, Endurance +30%, Vitality +20%;

Hidden attributes +10%

Casting speed +20%, Spell Completion Rate +1%, Spell critical rate +20%;

Ignore Levels +10

All item level requirements reduced by 10 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Mana Factory

Increases mana regeneration rate for wielder by 20%. Decreases mana consumption by 20%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Cold Affinity

Resistance to cold +200. All attacks do 150% cold damage. Damage or defence from ice and frost spell learnt by the wielder +300%

Additional Active Skill 1 – Summon Frost Guardian

Summons a frost guardian, one tier and 15 levels higher (up to Tier 4 / Level 200) to aid you for 60 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Frost Bite

Immobilise a single target for 6 seconds. The movement speed, attack and reaction speed reduced by 50% for the next 6 seconds. Target takes 200% cold damage per second for entire duration of the spell

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 3 – Blizzard

Engulfs a 500x500 yards area in an ice shards storm. Each shard carries 250% ice damage and 100% physical damage and numbs the target reducing movement and attack speed by 5%. Targets that become immobilised due to movement speed reduction by 100% or more would be frozen for 10 seconds and take 110% cold damage per second while frozen.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 8 hours

Legend has it that a nymph ripped off her heart after losing the love of her life in the great wars. The heart was harvested by Mage God Zimmer and shaped into a staff for his daughter to play with.

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Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous (Dark gold ranked, growth type, necklace)

The eye sees all and sundry, near or far.

Level 80-120

Equipment Requirements: Intelligence 1500

All basic attributes: +level

Additional Active Skill 1: Reveal

Reveals a 250x250 yards area up to 2000 yards away. All stealthy and invisible units are revealed as well.

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Appraise

Appraises all items up to one grade higher at no cost. Higher grade items require magic crystals for appraisal.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

The Seer was well known for his visions of the past and future and his position as the head of the temple of doom allowed him divinations from the Gods. After witnessing his plans being foiled time and again the orc emperor struck a deal with the Seer to spare his life and those of his followers in return for not aiding the alliance of human and beastmen clans. After the war was over the Seer’s subordinates turned on him and executed him for his treachery.

The power of the eye has degraded over time and can be restored to next grade by absorbing souls of equivalent power. Requires 10000 fragments of souls to upgrade to the next level. Souls weakened by over 25% or those slain by the wielder can be absorbed. Tier 2/3/4/5/6 souls contribute 1/10/100/1000/10000 fragments each. Currently (0/10000)

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Rain equipped the staff and the necklace and started following the trail of destruction. She was curious about what transpired in that area. All the signs pointed to a hasty retreat. Was there an ambush that went awry? She proceeded into the valley with utmost caution. She had a nagging feeling that she was being followed but she couldn’t see anything moving for hundreds of yards.


	9. Puny Ant crawls up a Demon’s Ass

“Why can’t I shake off this feeling of being watched” Rain felt uncomfortable moving along the burning body trail. She walked towards a narrow section of the valley to bolster her terrain advantage and used the Dark Seer’s eye to confirm her suspicions.

Reveal!

Five Level 130 Tier 3 wraiths that were on her tail and 200 yards behind her. They rushed in to attack after noticing that their cover was blown. Wraiths probably didn’t know that picking a fight with a witch in a narrow channel meant certain death. Rain cast ice walls around them, sealing all routes of escape. The “Cold Affinity” from the staff and her 100% water affinity had bolstered the ice walls to advanced Tier 4 toughness. She further cast “Blizzard” on the Wraiths turning them into ice cubes. Rain finally drew a “Life Drain” hex under their feet to hasten their demise. Five ice sculptures remained on the spot 30 seconds later. Being trapped in a hex was a sure way of dying. Rain cast a lightning bolt to shatter their bodies and picked up the loot that consisted primarily of materials. These undead creatures had no souls so there were none to absorb.

Rain was sure that these creatures had followed her all the way from the tower. It must be the warden keeping a tab on her movements. They would have probably attacked her the moment she was near Kijlstra, forcing her to run to her for safety. She decided to appraise the black cube the warden had given her.

System: Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous requires 1000 magic crystals to appraise this item.

“So many! Yuck” She bit her lips and spent half of her magic crystals on the appraisal.

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Soul Cube (Lesser Legendary Rank, Consumable)

Binds and destroys any soul it comes in contact with. The cube self-destructs after completely destroying the soul. Drops upon death.

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“Damn that warden. She wanted me to kill Kijlstra. I should have trusted my instincts. I just made a fool of myself” Rain suddenly remembered the Jealous witch’s advice. But why is a witch aiding Sin? Seems like I’ll have to find Kijlstra soon and get my answers. She immediately cast invisibility and hastened her pace. She walked for a couple of hours, cautiously checking out the corpses and collecting any loot that she could lay her hands on. She came across a clearing after climbing a narrow hilly slope. Three demonic Tier 4 NPCs stood around 500 yards away, at the end of the clearing. They immediately noticed her presence.

“So that’s the ant who tried to cross the warden. Come and meet your end” The knight in the centre unsheathed his broadsword and dashed towards Rain, instantly crossing 200 yards. The other two NPCs simply watched the ant being massacred while snickering away. Rain responded quickly and immediately used “Frost Bite” to stop the NPC in his tracks and froze him for a while. She used the breather to cast a few spells.

Summon Frost Guardian!

Summon Spirit Guardian!

Air Spirit Caller!

Summon Earth Elemental!

Elemental Chain Link!

Rain summoned one Tier 4 Frost Guardian, one Tier 4 Spirit Guardian, five Tier 3 Air Elementals and four Tier 3 Earth Elementals and linked them through a binding spell, boosting their defences. The Knight was still immobilised when she cast “Entangling Roots” to keep him chained, suppress his attributes and drained his stamina and concentration. She unleashed all the summoned creatures on the Knight.

The other two NPCs finally made a move and started casting curses. Rain used this opportunity to blink within 100 yards of the casters. Using “Timing and Placement” she placed herself right between the two casters. She cast invisibility and got teleported back to her original location the moment they finished casting the spell and pointed their fingers at her. The casters lost their target and had fingers pointed at each other instead. It was too late for adjustments as the curses took effect and targeted them. The training at Psychedelic Casket made Rain a master of using her adversary’s strengths for her own benefits.

Rain didn’t waste any time in appreciating the scene and drew “Killing Fields” and powered it at the casters who had lost 35-40% HP due to each other’s curses and were currently immobilised. Thanks to “Hexathon” the 15 yard area of effect was sufficient to cover them and prevent their escape. She followed it up with “Silent Degradation” to boost the hex to Tier 5. She turned around to focus on the knight who was surrounded and being bombarded by spells and curses by the guardians, with the elementals acting as meat shields and drawing his aggro. She drew “Energy Drain” and powered it and followed it up with “Lightning Sanction” and “Kiss of Death” to erase massive chunks of his HP. The knight fell within the next 30 seconds, feeding his soul to the “Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous”.

One of the casters managed to defeat a higher tier plant but couldn’t escape from the jaws of another due to a powerful poisoning and corrosion debuff. The elementals and the guardians stood at the edge of the circle, waiting to welcome their guests in the unlikely event of them escaping the killing fields. The plants devoured their souls leaving nothing for the eye. Rain gained two levels and rose to 10% of Level 122. She had a rich haul of items from these 3 demonic NPCs. The knight dropped a shiny sword that was definitely fragmented legendary rank or higher since the eye couldn’t appraise it for free. He also dropped a pouch that was an epic spatial storage device. The casters had better drops consisting of a cloak, 1 staff, 2 affinity crystals for darkness element and some materials and coins.

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Voidwalker’s Cloak (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Cloak)

Requirements: 2500 Intelligence, 1800 Agility

Class Restrictions: Tier 3 or above Caster type.

All Resistances increased by 100%

All damage received reduced by 30%

Intelligence and Agility increased by 50%

Strength and Endurance increased by 30%

Ignore Level +20

Movement Speed increased by 30%

Attack Speed increased by 30%

Reaction Speed increased by 30%

Additional Passive Skill 1 - Ambiguity

Other than the name, all information about the user would become ambiguous. Different observers will view different versions of the information.

No information would be revealed if the hoodie is equipped.

Users with 2 tier higher observation skills will be able to view basic information.

Physique improved by 10%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – One with the Void

User becomes invisible in environments rich in void or darkness energy. The first spell after entering combat state can be cast silently without exposing the caster until they select the target.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Camouflage

Blend with the environment for up to 30 minutes making detection difficult. You could be detectable within 10% distance of others' perception range. The first attack from camouflage state can be cast silently without exposing the caster and would result in a critical hit. Movement speed reduced by 80% when camouflaged.

You’ll lose camouflage if detected or when you attack.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 - Void Guard

Forms a life shield that can take damage up to Intelligence x Endurance HP for two minutes. As long as the shield exists, the player's HP recovery speed increases by 250% and Movement Speed increases by 150%.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Origins of this cloak are ambiguous. The dragon slayer Killmaw retrieved it after slaying the void dragon Gurang. The cloak was badly damaged when Killmaw was ambushed by the guardians of the dragon’s treasure, but it still enabled him to escape with his life. The cloak can be restored to pristine state with 100 bottles of void blood or 10000 darkness crystals. Current restoration status 0%.

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Voidwalker’s Staff (Epic Ranked, Growth Type, Two Handed Staff)

Level 110-160

Equipment Requirements: Endurance 1000, Strength 1200, Agility 1500, Intelligence 1800

Class Restrictions: Tier 3 or above Caster Type

Attack Power (200% of Main Attribute)

All Attributes (Increases according to user's level)

When equipped (at Level 110):

Strength, Endurance and Vitality +30%, Agility and Intelligence +40%

Hidden attributes +15%

Casting speed +25%, Spell Completion Rate +2%, Spell critical rate +25%;

Ignore Levels +15

All item level requirements reduced by 15 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Mana Surge

Increases wielder’s Mana capacity by 60%. Decreases mana consumption by 20%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Darkness Affinity

Resistance to darkness +200. All attacks do 200% darkness damage. Damage or defence from darkness spells by the wielder +300%. Incoming darkness attacks weakened by 30%

Additional Active Skill 1 – Summon Voidling

Summons a random creature from the void, one minor tier, 10 levels higher (up to Tier 4 / Level 200), and life rating +tier, to aid you for 90 minutes

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Null and Void

Fully nullify damage from a single attack.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Void Rampage

Summon up to a maximum of 300 void blades. Every void blade costs 200 mana and carries strength equal to 150% of the wielder's maximum damage and does additional 50% darkness damage.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 3 hours

This staff was forged by Grandmaster Magician Chewcabra in collaboration with Famed Smith Guzzleworth. They made grave miscalculations during the forging process as both forgers used different scales for measurement. This scythe shaped staff was a result of various calibration errors and unbalanced magic arrays. The lavish legendary ingredients used to make this staff and its magic circuits are still intact and can be balanced by channelling enough experience through it.

Requires 20,000,000 EXP to upgrade to Epic level 1. Currently (0/10)

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Rain pumped over 14 Billion EXP to bring it to Epic Level 9. Her level dropped to 83% of level 120. The 10 Billion EXP needed for the next upgrade would have brought her down to level 119.

She equipped the staff and used “Rapid Cooldown” to reset all her learned spell cooldowns. She arrived at the foot of the mountains 30 minutes later. The sounds of battle echoed through the valley. She hid behind a stone slab to have a better look at the warzone. Beyond piles and piles of bodies, a 6 yard tall demon was slowly walking towards two witches as if taking a leisurely walk. One of the witches had a hand on the floor with mana streams flowing out of her fingers. One stream linked to the other witch boosting her attributes. Three streams drained, attacked and attempted to control the demon. The last stream manifested a whirlwind around her, protecting her and damaging the demon’s minions when they came close to her. It was the first time Rain saw a witch’s domain in action. Those two witches were trying really hard to close a portal that the demon opened to call for reinforcements. There were two hexes stacked on each other causing heavy damages to the reinforcements but they were not enough to instantly kill them.

Kijlstra and Tokie were fighting a battle of life and death against the envoy of Sin. It seemed like the two Tier 5 witches were running out of time and options against their Tier 6 enemy and his numerous minions.

“Kijlstra. Give up your useless struggle and accept the dominion of Sin. You are nothing but a shadow of your past. Wake up and smell the coffee” the envoy bellowed.

“Gurjaden, I defeated you 1000 years ago and I will do it again. Come and meet your end” Kijlstra replied

“Come on. Times have changed. Last time we faced each other I was Tier 5 and you were Tier 6. Now the situation stands reversed. I can kill you with my bare hands” the envoy laughed at her provocation.

Rain didn’t have much time left. She had to act immediately and help the witches. This was not a fight she could bash through. She called up the system interface to align herself with the “Fallen of Augustus” and cast “Acid Rain” on the portal. The legacy spell not only doubled the damage from the hexes but also corroded the portal itself. Surprisingly none of the sides noticed her intrusion as the reinforcements were merely spare change.

The envoy unleashed his domain, using it to imprison Tokie and casually walked towards Kijlstra, mocking the futility of her antics at restraining him. Suddenly, out of nowhere a twinkling leaf landed on Kijstra’s domain and merged with it. Rain had hexed “Silent Degradation” on her domain, boosting it from peak tier 5 to peak tier 6. The sudden surge in power choked Gurjaden and brought him to a screeching stop. The 3 of them turned to look at Rain who was walking fearlessly towards them. She lifted her staff and cast a piercing thunderbolt on the corroded portal, collapsing it on itself. The portal exploded, releasing a huge blast of lightning and fire as it broke apart, completely obliterating the minions who were caught in the area.

“Oh! What a grand entrance! You set the stage on fire girl” Tokie mused.

“Puny ant! A puny ant dares to challenge the mighty Gurjaden! Even Gods despair at my presence. I must admit I hate your guts. As a reward for your bravado, I’ll use you as a dummy to test out my latest creation. Behold the destroyer of Gods!” the envoy was fuming at being upstaged by a Tier 3 witch. He started chanting a spell that seemed to tear the fabric of reality itself. 10 pitch black magic arrays appeared above him and started sucking in mana like a thirsty hippo.

Sensing a mighty spell coming her way, Rain started running towards the demon. By the time she was within 600 yards of the demon she saw a number appearing on her head. She was 1, Kijstra was 2 and Tokie was 3. It was obvious to her that this was a multi target spell that would kill them in the order stated. She cast “Void Guard” to boost her defences and movement speed for the next 2 minutes, and kept running as she watched a pitch black spear emerge from one of the magic arrays.

“Hahaha. Run ant run! You can run but you cannot hide. Once you are marked only permanent death can absolve you” the envoy continued to laugh, striking despair among the witches. It was definitely a spell that could not be dodged. Could she block it?

System: Recognised Tier 6 Curse “God’s Bane”. Do you wish to record it in the “The Grimoire of Over-tier Spells”?

Rain's lips curled up in a smile when she heard the system notice. “Record” she exclaimed. By the time the spear was fully formed she was within 500 yards of the demon. She started laughing like a maniac and asked “Demon! Do you know what happens when an ant crawls up your anus?”


	10. 2 Gods bite the dust in 60 seconds!

“You witches are crazy! Do you have to bang your heads against a wall during training?” the demon mused, surprised by Rain’s behaviour. Even the two other witches were stiff with horror.

Rain used “blink” the moment the spear shot forth like a lightning bolt, and appeared behind the demon’s massive body, using it as a shield against his own spell. She wasn’t running to escape or seek mutual destruction, she was running to get the demon within the range of blink. The spear pierced through the demon's body resulting in a massive 25 billion damage and stunned him. Rain didn’t manage to escape fully as the tip of the spear emerged from the demon’s back and wiped out 15 million from the Void Guard’s defence. Kijlstra disconnected one of the streams from the demon and connected it to Rain, vitalising her. Rain successfully blocked the second spear, piling another 20 billion damage on the demon. Kijlstra understood Rain’s plan and subtly manipulated the stream to give her a 500% movement speed boost.

Armed with hyper-speed Rain started toying with the stunned demon, achieving critical hits with every other spear

“-45 billion critical damage”

“-40 billion critical damage”

“-20 billion damage”

“-40 billion critical damage”

“-21 billion damage”

“-36 billion critical damage”

“-40 billion critical damage”

“-25 billion damage”

10th spear wiped clean the last of the demon’s mammoth 300 billion HP turning its body into particles of light. Two seconds later “Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous” devoured its first Tier 6 soul, fulfilling its upgrade criteria. The necklace started crumbling into pearls and reorganised itself like an abacus. It returned to Rain’s palm a few seconds later after the upgrade was finished. Throughout the transformation, Rain was levelling up like crazy. The EXP bar only stabilised after reaching 90% of level 130. She had gained 10 levels in 10 seconds. There were over 10 items littered around the envoy’s body, glittering in brilliant light. There was 1 Legendary ranked Axe [Titan’s Wrath], 1 Fragmented Legendary Bow [Thunder Whisperer], 2 Fragmented Legendary ranked equipment for Rangers [Steaming Shoes + Wisp’s Gloves] , 1 Peak construction design for a Casino, 1 Epic ranked engineering design for a ghost rider amphibious combat mount, 1 Epic forging design for a 6-piece Void armour set for casters, 1 folder containing 13 passes to Sin City, a few stacks of legendary and lesser legendary materials and a thick metal sheet that bounced a few times before flying into Rain’s palm.

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God Slayer (Legendary Title)

User Restriction: Tier 4 or above.

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Defeated a God in a single combat while below Tier 5)

Details of the title will only be revealed after it is equipped.

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Rain quickly pocketed the items. While she couldn’t use any of the items, they would earn her tonnes of GCPs. Kijlstra and Tokie made their way towards Rain to thank her for saving their lives. A huge dust storm started to swirl as soon as the witches exchanged greetings. Another battle had arrived at their doorstep. A spear like object landed at the centre of the dust storm sending massive tremors in all directions. Kijlstra and Tokie had to hold Rain’s hands to stop her from flying away due to the power of the blast wave. Rain immediately recognised the object at a distance, it was the “Elder Staff”.

A powerful rejuvenation hex had appeared under their feet. Both Kijlstra and Tokie were drained and exhausted from continuously fighting and needed some time to recover. They could sense that this new enemy that was yet to reveal itself, was more powerful than Gurjaden.

“Can you still cast?” Rain asked Kijlstra in anticipation.

“I need at least five seconds to rejuvenate. I am not sure if we have that much time” Kijlstra replied earnestly.

“I’ll buy you as much time as you need. Cast this spell when you are ready” Rain handed the grimoire to her along with the Ice Spirit Ring. There was no point in her casting a tier 6 curse at tier 3.

A maniacal laughter filled up the valley. The dust storm subsided to reveal a powerful demon ogling at them. “My dear Kijlstra! I have searched the whole world for you and here you are, ripe for the picking” the demon continued laughing.

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Kapoornakh, Sin’s Adjudicator [Tier 6 Demon God]

Level 200, HP 350 billion

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“Hey you! Yes you! Did you mess with my tier 4 promotion quest and bring me here?” Rain threw a tantrum.

“Ah the little birdie! I am amazed you managed to survive the trip. I do feel bad for your pathetic existence but you were just a means to the end. As a favour I promise I’ll kill you last” the demon smirked looking down at Rain.

“You are right. I am indeed the means to your end. I just ended your little brother. If you don’t offer me an apology I’ll end you next” Rain quipped, enraging the demon. She was trying her best to keep the demon distracted.

“You amuse me with your cockamamie gibberish” the demon laughed and looked at her mockingly.

“Here take a look” Rain flashed the God Slayer title in her hands, thoroughly bewildering the demon who responded with a powerful attack spell.

“Null and Void” Rain used a skill to fully void the damage, stunning the demon further. “You infuriate me. Apologise now and I’ll overlook this childish behaviour, or die at my hands just like your little brother” Rain gave him a cold glare, inciting fear in the heart of the demon.

“If you kill me Kijlstra dies too!” The demon said, trying to make sense of the situation. The tiny ant suffered no damage from his attack and had indeed slayed his demon brother. Thinking of her as a powerful God hiding under an illusion, he decided to play safe.

Rain had a shocked look on her face. Even if she wasn’t trying to buy time, this statement shook her to the core. She collected herself and stated “Explain yourself”, hoping to spring a story telling session, buying as much time as needed. The demon obliged.

“Kijlstra bound herself with the Elder Staff, entering a death pact with me. If I die, she will die along with me. It is as simple as that” the demon stated

“She died once already and voided that pact. She is a free spirit now” Rain stated.

“No, it does not work that way. She may have died earlier, but she tricked me and escaped my prison. The pact is tied to our souls. So don’t misjudge my intentions, I am only here to claim what is mine” the demon responded sincerely.

“I see. Let me think about it” Rain nodded her head and moved her fingers trying to calculate something. 5 seconds had passed. She decided to delay further as the hex was still in effect and a little rejuvenation never hurt anyone.

“Kijlstra, what are your thoughts on this. Do you intend to honour your pact or die along with the demon? We witches are duty bound to honour our pacts, otherwise we are just like these demons, wriggling our way out through loopholes” Rain winked at Kijlstra asking her to play along

“I have made it my life’s target to slay that demon and rest forever in peace. I was tricked into making a pact, it was not a fair exchange, and hence I see no reason to honour trickery. Besides, that demon is the reason for the curse we bear and the legacy you possess. He is the one who tricked the dryads and us witches into summoning Sin into this world. He even impersonated as a dryad to make it convincing enough for us to believe him. You cannot honour a pact with one who knows no honour. If not for him I wouldn’t have to willingly sacrifice my life and bind my existence to this legacy so that in case I died I could return to finish the job” Kijlstra stated very slowly and subtly, buying as much time as possible. She nodded to everyone to indicate she was ready to cast the spell. Throughout her explanation she had pointed her finger at the demon every time she mentioned him, to desensitize him from taking countermeasures when she would finally cast the spell. Rain winked at Tokie to start the show.

“No! I cannot let you go” Tokie ran forward and grabbed her hand in a show of solidarity. She was actually channelling her energy into Kijlstra who had started to cast while hiding behind Rain. Rain also put her hand on her shoulders to channel her energy. Tokie’s childish pleadings continued while the spell was being cast.

“Demon. For the sake of fairness I will lock this place down until Kijlstra reaches her decision” Rain raised a finger to the skies prompting 10 pitch black magic arrays to manifest. A master of timing like herself could easily deceive anyone she wished. “Once she has made her decision I will allow the two of you to decide your fates. If you accept defeat you’ll release her from the pact, otherwise she is yours to command. Do I make myself clear?” Rain spoke with a regal air of superiority.

“Totally fair. I give you my word” The demon smiled, silently patting his own back for not infuriating someone who could tear reality with a poke of her fingers. He himself would have to cast for at least a second to achieve that reaction. He was sure he could overpower Kijlstra and walk away scot free.

The moment Kijlstra finished casting the spell, Rain gave a cold and annoyed glare to Tokie to shut her up and said “Tokie I believe you need to explain your situation to someone else”. The demon relaxed further after seeing a Tier 3 witch bossing around a Tier 5. This was a lucky day for him.

“Whom?” Tokie asked playing along, prompting Kijlstra to point her finger at Kapoornakh, setting him as the target of the spell. By the time the demon realised what had happened the number 1 displayed on his head. Rain’s channelling had helped them push the spell to tier 6.

“I am ready to die demon. But I’ll take you down along with me” Kijlstra yelled. The demon tried to escape while the magic array was collecting mana. He bitterly discovered the fact that there was no escape from this spell. An invisible barrier had enveloped the entire 800 yards, prohibiting exit.

As soon as the first spear assaulted the demon, stunning him, the 3 witches started chain casting every available attack, control and drain spell, curse or hex in their arsenal to deplete the demon’s massive 350 billion HP. The 100 yards area around the demon was being peppered by tier boosted single target and AOE spells and curses every second. Tokie had boosted the power of spells by 25% using a rare hex. The humongous spatial tears caused by the side effects of the spells colliding with each other were deadlier than the spells themselves. By the 8th spear the demon had less than 40 billion HP left. Rain ran towards the demon, using blink to arrive just outside the hexed zone and started casting some of the tier 3 and tier 2 spells to hasten the demon’s death. When the 10th spear shot forward to claim the demon’s life she had finished casting “Elemental Blessing” and used “Timing and placement” to arrive next to the demon’s corpse. She took out the Soul Cube and used it on the demon’s soul, binding it completely. She cast invisibility to teleport herself out of the hex area.

The demon had already told her that the pact was linked to their souls. If she destroyed the demon’s soul before Kijlstra’s soul was destroyed, the pact would be broken. Her guess was correct. While Kijlstra was screaming in pain as soon as the demon died, she felt a sense of relief the moment the cube destroyed itself. She still ended up with a weakened soul, but it was much better than total extermination.

2 Gods had fallen within a span of 60 seconds. The battlefield was finally silent.


	11. Legacy of the Fallen

“Phew” Rain sighed as the battle was finally over. This demon awarded more EXP than the previous one. The golden glow only subsided after she reached 80% of level 137. Rain quickly pocketed the items after the duration of the hex ended, and ran back to check on Kijlstra. She placed the necklace in her bag to prevent any accidents. Though she wanted to feed the demon’s soul to the necklace she decided to use the cube instead. Destroying the soul quickly was her first priority. What shocked her most was that she felt a lot lighter when the demon died. A huge burden was taken off her back. The 2 witches were fixated on the “Elder Staff” that was running amok, beating itself to the ground. A while later one of the prisoners was released. Five minutes later 13 witches hovered in the sky, looking at the 3 witches that had released them from their prison. Kijlstra and Tokie recognised some of them.

“Adriana, Salmoksha, Spree. Do you guys remember me?” Tokie asked.

The witches had tears in their eyes. They rushed towards them and bowed to convey their appreciation. “Please allow me” said one of the witches whom they weren’t acquainted with. She drew a hex and powered it on the ground below them. “A soul hex!” Rain exclaimed as she felt her soul strengthen. Apparently all the witches were suffering from a weakened soul state due to the death pact they made with the demon.

“Sisters, I do not have much time left. We are all free today due to my protégé who was tricked into this warzone under the guise of a tier promotion quest. She carries my fallen legacy, however now that my oath is fulfilled, both my soul and my legacy will fade away soon. Would you be kind enough to share your legacies with her?” Kijlstra pleaded with the witches gathered there.

“Wait. Didn’t I destroy that demon’s soul? Why do you still need to go away?” Rain asked.

“My soul was bound to these lands due to the curse that afflicted our coven. With the death of Kapoornakh that curse has been lifted. The witches and dryads are no longer bound to Sin. The witches’ sin has been absolved. I can only stay a while longer before I pass on to afterlife” Kijlstra explained.

“But Sin is still alive. How do you expect us to defeat him without you?” Rain asked. “We are never truly free until we destroy him” she said.

“Go seek the warden. She is a friend of mine. She’ll help you defeat Sin” Kijlstra responded

“That warden gave me the cube I used to destroy Kapoornakh’s soul, and asked me to deliver it to you. She wanted your soul exterminated. What kind of friend does that?” Rain responded with anger.

“I told you she set us up. We wouldn’t have lost seven sisters today if not for that bitch. Do you believe me now?” Tokie pointed and narrated the story of the invasion they planned and how they escaped from the ambush. Kijlstra was all tears. It was hard for her to believe that a close friend had stabbed her in the back.

“Do you know why Sin is so riled up after 1000 years? We have never faced an invasive force that huge so far. Things have really gone south in the past 60 odd days” Tokie asked.

“This world was sealed for good 3 months ago. The armies Sin was quietly building outside won’t do his bidding anymore. He’s lost control over the primordial heart that he was using to twist the natives to his will. That might explain his unease.” Rain explained before adding “Kijlstra you should stay and help us seal the final victory”

“May I offer a solution?” another unknown witch chimed in. “The Elder Staff is a vessel of darkness. There are still souls loitering around inside. We can purge this staff and cleanse it off the darkness within. It can become your new home if you wish” she explained the plan.

“I did so much, gave up my vows, gave up my life, and gave up everything I held dear to stay out of that damned staff. Now you want me to go back in there?” Kijlstra was angry at the suggestion.

“It can be your home, not a prison that you can never walk out of. You could leave the moment Sin is vanquished” the witch explained. Kijlstra reluctantly agreed to the suggestion.

We shall set up the ritual circle, the 3 of you stay outside to handle any unexpected situations while we cleanse the staff. Rain quickly re-geared to maximise her combat power. The ritual circle was a synergy of various hexes. The first was an earth binding hex to keep the staff secured, the second was a soul hex to keep the prisoners oriented and the third was a light hex to cleanse the staff. The 13 witches chained themselves and started the cleansing ritual. Its denizens started pouring out one by one, however instead of being released they were getting absorbed by the “Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous”.

The eye happily absorbed all the dark souls coming out of the staff for the next 45 seconds. The witches powering the ritual seemed to have hit a roadblock. Both Kijlstra and Tokie had to channel their power into the ritual to kick out its last occupant, a monstrous dryad that was corrupted beyond recognition. Being tier 6, the dryad was the only one who could put up some resistance to stop her soul from getting destroyed. She found an opening to cast “Life Drain” on Rain with her full power. Kijlstra responded with “Torrid Rejuvenation” and Tokie buffed it up by casting “Life Link”, using their own life force to balance Rain’s life drain. The power of the dryad’s spell was too much for them to handle. Initially her HP was dropping like a waterfall, now it was flowing like a river. She could die in less than 10 seconds if the HP loss was not plugged. None of the 13 witches could stop powering the ritual until the dryad was expunged. 5 seconds later a shimmering flower landed on top of Rain and burst into flames. It was a healing spell “Fire of Life” cast by someone totally unexpected.

“So even the mighty Kijlstra cannot save her protégé’s life. How ironic is that?” The hooded witch in the sky taunted. Rain recognised that voice. It was the Jealous witch. The fire had started to heal her slightly faster than the life drain, balancing her HP at a critical level.

“Sister Eleanor, glad to have you back” Kijlstra replied with a smile.

“Oh keep your patronizing tone to yourself. I came for her, not for your honey traps” the Jealous witch replied. She was overcome with guilt when she knew the ritual was compromised and she had tried to shirk responsibility. She decided to track her down using soul and aura lock spells. She was aghast to find out that the staff she carried was the very item that corrupted their homeland. She wouldn’t let a junior witch die under her watch.

“Did something happen? I don’t feel the burden of the curse anymore. Neither do I feel the power of the code beckoning me to Sin’s calling?” the Jealous witch remarked.

“This little angel you sent our way saved us all. Both of Sin’s generals are dead. Never to return. The curse is broken and we are all free” Kijlstra responded.

By the time the dryad was finally absorbed, Rain’s HP recovered to 50%. The witches had finished cleansing the staff, purging the darkness with light. The staff now looked like an abode of life and purity. The witches turned their attention towards Kijlstra and Tokie.

“By the power vested in me by the coven of Jiro I absolve thee” one of the witches in the circle decreed.

“By the power vested in me by the coven of Sirocco I absolve thee” another of the witches in the circle decreed.

“By the power vested in me by the coven of Celeste I absolve thee” another of the witches in the circle decreed.

“By the power vested in me by the coven of Electra I absolve thee” another of the witches in the circle decreed.

“By the power vested in me by the coven of Augustus I absolve thee” the Jealous witch chimed in, trying to hide the tears in her eyes.

Both Kijlstra and Tokie were absolved of their fallen status. They had never doubted their decision to go against their own coven in a fight against Sin. The witches started to depart by offering their gratitude to Rain and the rest.

“Thank you for saving our souls. Please accept this legacy crystal and affinity stone as a token of our coven’s gratitude”

“Thank you for liberating me. Please accept this legacy crystal as a token of our coven’s gratitude”

“Thank you for saving me. I don’t have any legacy to offer so please accept this legacy spell and affinity stone as a token of our coven’s gratitude”

“Thank you for saving me and my sister from eternal torture. Please accept this legacy crystal, our family’s soul hex and this affinity stone as a token of our gratitude”

.. . . .

Rain collected 7 legacy crystals, 10 affinity stones, 3 legacy spells, 2 hexes and 1 communication crystal from the witches as they departed.

“Adriana, you not planning on leaving?” Kijlstra asked.

“I promised to follow you as long as I live. I will follow you in death as well. Can I share your new home with you?” she smiled with a teary face. The jealous witch Eleanor simply rolled her eyes causing everyone to laugh.

“Rain, this is from me. I am not powerful enough to pass you a legacy, but I can give you this spell and hex. You can learn them after you reach Tier 4” Tokie chimed.

“And this legacy stone is from me. I created it before I became a fallen. Now that I have been absolved I can give it to you without a care” Kijlstra handed her the stone and walked into the “Elder Staff” along with Adriana. When Rain picked up the staff its description had changed significantly.

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Elder Staff (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Ceremonial Staff, Bag Item)

Level 120-200

Equipment Requirements: Strength 1000, Agility 1500, Intelligence 3600

All attributes bonuses increase by 2% for every 5 levels above Level 120

Strength +30%, Agility +50%, Intelligence +70%, Endurance +30%, Vitality +50%;

Hidden attributes +20%

Casting speed +30%, Spell Completion Rate +5%, Spell critical rate +30%;

Mana consumption while casting -20%;

Luck +20

Ignore Levels +20

All item level requirements reduced by 15 Levels.

Free Attribute Points: +tier every 5 levels

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Nature’s Blessings

Owner’s HP increases by 5% and mana by 2% for every person or monster within 80 yards. Friendly units receive a boost of 10% HP and 5% mana when in range.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Healing Aura

All friendly units within 100 yards will have HP regeneration rate +250%.

The staff was shaped out of an elder dryad’s tree while it was magically imprisoned. A symbol of corruption, death and eternal torture in the past, this staff now reverberates with life and healing brilliance of stars. This ceremonial staff does not need to be equipped. You can experience its boost and affinities by carrying it in your bag space. The item will drop if the level or equipment requirements are no longer met.

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Rain kept the staff and followed Tokie and Eleanor around to clean up any stragglers from Sin’s army.


	12. Legendary Ring of Power

The three witches steadily wiped off Sin’s forces in the area using a mix of hexes and traps. Rain had first-hand experience of witches’ fighting strategies and battle plans. She also collected quite a few equipment and enough soul fragments to upgrade the eye to fragmented legendary rank.

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Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Necklace)

The eye sees all and sundry, near or far.

Level 120-180

Equipment Requirements: Intelligence 3000

All basic attributes: +level x 8

All hidden attributes: +level x 5

Additional Active Skill 1: Reveal

Reveals a 750x750 yards area up to 5000 yards away. All stealthy and invisible units are revealed as well.

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Appraise

Appraises all items up to one grade higher at no cost. Higher grade items require magic crystals for appraisal.

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3: Spy wards

Plant invisible wards along a path to follow or track movement of targets. Each ward lasts for 60 minutes and can track invisible units.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 4: Divine Vision

Peek through the future for a maximum of 5 seconds, up to 3 times a day.

Cooldown: 24 hours

Additional Passive Skill 1: Eye of Seer

Reveals all soul signatures within 25 yards radius

Reveals all life signatures within 100 yard radius

Additional Passive Skill 2: Clear Vision

Allows the user to see through illusions and locate traps within 50 yards.

The Seer was well known for his visions of the past and future and his position as the head of the temple of doom allowed him divinations from the Gods. After witnessing his plans being foiled time and again the orc emperor struck a deal with the Seer to spare his life and those of his followers in return for not aiding the alliance of human and beastmen clans. After the war was over the Seer’s subordinates turned on him and executed him for his treachery.

The power of the eye has degraded over time and can be restored to next grade by absorbing souls of equivalent power. Requires 10,000 fragments of souls to upgrade to the next level. Souls weakened by over 35% or those slain by the wielder can be absorbed. Tier 4/5/6 souls contribute 1/10/100 fragments each. Currently (21/10, 000)

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After thinning out Sin’s forces, the witches decided to regroup in the safety of their hideout and plan the next invasion carefully. They would be going against Sin, the warden and possibly a corrupted Witch Queen Asara. Rain decided to use the time to upgrade her stuff and learn new spells.

She analysed the 15 orbs looted from demon Kapoornakh’s body. There was 1 Legendary ring [Ring of Power], 1 Legendary spear [Abyss’s stinger], 2 Fragmented Legendary paired short swords [Kaal’s past] and [Kaal’s future], 1 Fragmented Legendary Shield [Shimmering Twilight], 1 Tier 5 Spell Book [Darkness Odyssey], 1 Emblem for Sin City, 1 unranked construction design [Tower of Supreme Elements x 4], 1 unranked engineering design [Soul Harvester], 1 Legacy Crystalline Skull [Bloodrage Beast - peak legacy (1 slot); Bloodrage Blade - special legacy (5 slots) for berserkers], 1 Legacy Technique Crystal, 1 Epic rated tome [Void Atlas], 1 Summoning bell for an Advanced Extraordinary flight mount [Void Shadow Hawk] and legendary materials like void dragon scales and a bottle of void ash. She was disappointed to learn that the legendary ring could only be equipped at Tier 5 or higher.

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Ring of Power (Legendary Rank, Ring)

Tier Restriction: Tier 5 or higher

Equipment Requirement: Strength 5000, Agility 6000, Intelligence 5500

When equipped:

Tier: +1 minor tier; All attributes (except Luck): +2500; Luck: +level

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Apex Predator

Targets up to 10 levels higher or same tier suffer suppression of 30 levels.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Empowered

No level suppression from targets up to 30 levels higher. No tier suppression from targets up to 1 tier higher. Suppression reduced by 35% for higher level or tier targets.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Power Critical

Every critical hit gets you a power count increment. You can score a maximum of 10 power counts every 5 seconds. If you hit the maximum number the next hit is guaranteed to be a critical hit and resets the counter. The counter will reset every 5 seconds.

Each critical hit damage: 100% x (1 + power count)

Additional Passive Skill 4 – Power Barrier

User is surrounded by an energy barrier adding +250% Defence and +500 elemental resistance. The first melee attack is automatically nullified by the barrier.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Power Drain

For targets up to Tier 5, forcefully reduce a target’s tier by 1; reduce by 2 minor tiers for Tier 6. Level reduced by 20.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 60 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2 – Power Boost

Forcefully boost all your skills to your current tier for the next 60 seconds.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 3 – Power Pace

Reduce the time flow by 50% for all targets within 500 yards range, reducing their movement and attack speed and reaction time by 50% while increasing your ally’s movement and attack speed and reaction time by 100%.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 3 hours

Additional Active Skill 4 – Predator Mode

Every kill increases your attributes temporarily by 5% for the next 120 seconds. You must have landed the killing blow to earn this boost. The attributes revert back to normal after next 90 seconds

Cooldown: 3 hours

Additional Active Skill 5 – Gravity Domain

Targets within 500 yards will suffer increased gravitational suppression, starting with +0.5g at the periphery and increase by 0.5g every 50 yards closer to you.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 hours

This ring was secretly crafted by the God of Chaos to birth a new type of supreme element. The only thing this ring achieved was utter destruction of an entire city as the five supreme elements of space, time, illusion, void and divine rampaged through it, devouring every other element in the process and creating a dead zone devoid of any mana for miles in every direction. Realising that the five elements cannot be mixed together, God of Chaos destroyed the ring to prevent future accidents. 4 fragments of the ring were gathered and re-forged by Blacksmith God Simian Void into a ring of power.

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Void Atlas (Epic Ranked, Book, Bag Item)

A ledger of all locations the user has visited in the last 30 days. The ledger will record detailed maps of the locations and update them in real time. Changes to the current map can be viewed throughout the day

Additional Active Skill: View Map

Allows you to see the current view of any location on the maps for the last 30 days for 30 seconds. Displays stealthy and invisible units on the location as well.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Created by Grandmaster Engineer and Cartographer Alexandra Pill to study the mysterious Ghost islands in the realm of frost. It was only on the 15th day that Alexandra discovered a giant fish devouring entire islands and depositing mountains of white pearly sands on the seabed.

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She upgraded “Voidwalker’s Staff” from Epic level 9 to Fragmented Legendary level 5 by pumping around 175 billion EXP into it, causing her level to fall to 126. She then continued to upgrade “Ring of Broken Promises” to Fragmented Legendary level 4 by pumping 81 billion EXP, causing her level to fall to 10% of 120.

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Voidwalker’s Staff (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Two Handed Staff)

Level 120-180

Equipment Requirements: Endurance 2100, Strength 2300, Agility 3000, Intelligence 3600

Class Restrictions: Tier 3 or above Caster Type

Attack Power: (250% of Main Attribute)

All Basic Attributes: + level x tier x 5 

Hidden Attributes (excluding luck): + level x tier x 2

Free Attribute Points: + 2 x tier every 5 levels

When equipped (at Level 120-124):

Strength, Endurance and Vitality +50%, Agility and Intelligence +80%

Hidden attributes +25%

Casting speed +50%, Spell Completion Rate +5%, Spell critical rate +40%;

Ignore Levels +20

All item level requirements reduced by 20 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Mana Surge

Increases wielder’s Mana capacity by 80%. Decreases mana consumption by 40%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Darkness Affinity

Resistance to darkness +400. All attacks do 300% darkness damage. Damage or defence from darkness spells by the wielder +500%. Incoming darkness attacks weakened by 50%

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Void Affinity

Resistance to void +100. All attacks do 50% void damage. Damage or defence from void attacks by the wielder +200%. Incoming void attacks weakened by 20%

Additional Active Skill 1 – Summon Voidling

Summons a random creature from the void, +2 minor tiers, 20 levels higher (up to apex Tier 4 / Level 200), and life rating +tier, to aid you for 2 hours

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 2 – Void’s Echo

Fully nullify damage from a single attack. The attack is absorbed and rebounded to the attacker with 200% of original damage.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Void Rampage

Summon up to a maximum of 300 void blades. Every void blade costs 100 mana and carries strength equal to 150% of wielder’s maximum damage and does additional 100% darkness damage.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2.5 hours

Additional Active Skill 4 – Void Caller

Fill yourself with the energy of the void raising your attributes:

Level +20 (Max 200), Attributes x5, Physique x2, Tier +1 minor tier +20% (Max peak tier 6), Life rating +2, Movement Speed x2

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 10 hours

This staff was forged by Grandmaster Magician Chewcabra in collaboration with Famed Smith Guzzleworth. They made grave miscalculations during the forging process as both forgers used different scales for measurement. This scythe shaped staff was a result of various calibration errors and unbalanced magic arrays. The lavish legendary ingredients used to make this staff and its magic circuits are still intact and can be balanced by channelling enough experience through it.

Requires 98,718,750,000 EXP to upgrade to Fragmented Legendary level 6. Currently (5/12)

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Ring of Broken Promises (Fragmented Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Ring)

Level 120-180

Equipment Requirement: Strength 2400, Agility 2400, Intelligence 2400, Endurance 2400, Vitality 2400

Equipment Restriction: Witch. 

All basic elemental resistances: +240 +level

All supreme elemental resistances: +170 +level

All basic attributes: +1900

All attributes (basic + hidden): +level x tier x 2, +60%

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Shadow of Corruption

Any hex involving offense, control and summoning will degrade equipment durability by 12 points for every second inside the hex area. The damage will double for darkness type creatures and triple for undead.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Slippery Slope

Enemies attacking from within 5 yards have a 40% chance to slip and fall before landing their attack. Those who slip have a 75% chance of receiving damage from their own skill and 25% change to enter a fainted state for 5 seconds

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Lady Luck

Gives you a 20% chance that all damage by the next hex or spell would be critical damage. Only triggers once every hour.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Total Obliteration

Sap an area of 800 yards circle of all life and energy by unleashing the power of ruination. Every second inside the affected area saps 5% stamina and concentration. Dual blades of darkness and light and spears of lightning ravage the area doing 600% damage per second. A magnetic vortex at the centre sucks everyone towards it preventing escape, while making dodges and blocks difficult.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Levitation Slam

Lift targets within 50 yards up in the air by 30 yards and slam them down to the ground using five times the gravity causing blunt force damage and stunning them for 8 seconds. Targets will be disillusioned for the next 8 seconds causing their movement speed, reaction time and attack speed to drop by 60%. 

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Elemental Inversion

Convert darkness to light, fire to water, air to earth, etc., convert the primary element in the environment into its opposite element, in an area of 800 x 800 yards.

Alternatively, you can choose to invert a specific element in the environment in a 650x650 yards area.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

This artefact was forged by the fallen witch Shastraku by draining the power of elder witches in her coven and twisting them into a ring of elemental essences containing: darkness, light, electricity, magnetism and death. Interestingly, Shastraku had offered no resistance when junior witches of the coven had tracked her down and brought her to justice. She had no more purpose left in life after extracting her revenge for every promise broken by the elders. She even gifted this ring to the witch who landed the killing blow.

Requires 50,625,000,000 EXP to upgrade to Fragmented Legendary level 5. Currently (4/12)

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	13. Ancient Witch of Extraordinary Power

Rain was happy watching her attributes surge due to the bonuses from her equipment. She boosted her illusion affinity by absorbing 1 of the 10 affinity stones. The soul hex could only be learnt at tier 4.

System: You have gained 20% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 30%

She wasn’t sure what to do with the legacy stone and 7 legacy crystals. Wondering what to do, she squeezed the legacy stone tightly in her palm. A system prompt interrupted her thoughts.

System: Do you wish to absorb the legacy contained within the stone?

Rain responded with a yes. She was worried about what Kijlstra had mentioned earlier. If the legacy of a fallen witch was so powerful, the legacy of a solemn witch should be equally strong. It took her 30 minutes to fully absorb the legacy stone.

System: You have met all preconditions for a class change. The quest “Sinner’s circle” has now been upgraded into a Tier 4 class change quest.

System: You have absorbed a legacy stone containing 50% legacy power from Coven of Augustus. Locate more legacy stones, crystals or fragments to absorb them. A minimum 95% completion is required to activate your Tier 4 class change

Rain quickly shuffled through the various legacy crystals absorbing them in a sequence. Each crystal had a different percentage of legacy power and from various covens.

System: Absorbed 7% legacy power from Coven of Electra. Total 57%.

System: Absorbed 7% legacy power from Coven of Sirocco. Total 64%.

System: Absorbed 8% legacy power from Sisters of Starfire. Total 72%.

System: Absorbed 8% legacy power from Coven of Jiro. Total 80%.

System: Absorbed 6% legacy power from Coven of Celeste. Total 86%.

System: Absorbed 5% legacy power from Infinity world. Total 91%.

System: Absorbed 5% legacy power from Prismatic cosmos. Total 96%.

System: Congratulations! Your Tier 4 Legacy Completion Rate has reached 96%. Do you wish to activate your Tier 4 Legacy?

Rain hesitated for a while. She was out of legacy crystals but she knew that it was possible for peak legacies to achieve over 100% completion. She decided to talk to all the witches before committing to her fate.

“Would you know where I can find another legacy crystal?” Rain asked the Jealous witch for help.

“You are really shameless to ask a witch for favours, to her face! Frankly I like that. Too bad I don’t have any you can use. You need to look elsewhere and make sure you don’t infuriate others while you are at it” the Jealous witch reprimanded Rain.

Rain got the hint but couldn’t care any lesser about infuriating others in the middle of a warzone. She went off to look for Tokie, to check if she could help. Tokie, Kijlstra and Adriana had just finished a ritual seeking solace and a peaceful transition to the afterlife for the sisters they lost in the last battle. Both Tokie and Kijlstra had helpless looks on their faces when they heard Rain’s request. Adriana however, used the opportunity to apologise to Rain.

“I do have a legacy crystal, but I was fallen long before I created the crystal. I didn’t offer you mine since everybody looks down upon a fallen’s legacy. It would only do you harm” she said.

“I have lived a fallen’s legacy so far and it didn’t make any difference to me. I would accept yours with honour if you choose to pass it on to me” Rain responded, causing Kijlstra to blush with embarrassment.

“Seems like we’ll have to rewrite the code soon” Tokie chuckled. Adriana gave Rain her legacy crystal and they left off to join the jealous witch in the war room.

System: Absorbed 5% legacy power from Fallen of Augustus. Total 101%.

System: Congratulations! Your Tier 4 Legacy Completion Rate has reached 101%. Do you wish to activate your Tier 4 Legacy?

Rain activated it without hesitation.

System: Unable to determine your legacy’s roots. The legacy you have assembled consists of affinity towards 4 supreme elements and 10 basic elements from different realms. Do you want the system to recommend the closest matching legacy?

“Yes” Rain was perplexed by the prompt.

System: Identified ancient legacy “Antiquity Witch”. This legacy represents the apex of power among the witches and demands a powerful life force to maintain itself. You will need 2.3 times the regular experience gain to level up. You’ll gain additional 10 x tier free attribute points and 2% primary or secondary affinity every 5 levels. You would suffer twice the death penalty and lose 10% of total affinity for your primary element upon death. Do you wish to activate this legacy?

Rain hesitated for a moment but activated it anyway.

System: You have activated your Tier 4 Legacy. You have unlocked two learning topics from your legacy. You have one hour to learn them. So long as you learn just one topic listed below, you will be promoted to Tier 4.

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[Particulate Corrosion] (Casting-type)

Requires: Staff

Apex Tier 4 Legacy Curse

Unleash a storm of corrosive sand on an area of 800x800 yards, 400x400 yards, 200x200 yards, 100x100 yards, 50x50 yards, or 10x10 yards. The density and corrosiveness of the sand increases with reduced area of coverage, raising it by 1 tier for 50x50 yards and 1 tier + 1 minor tier for 10x10 yards.

For 400x400 yards (default):

A sand storm corrodes anything and everything it touches, turning Dark Gold or below equipment to dust within 5 seconds of exposure, epic items disintegrate if exposed for 20 seconds or more, fragmented and lesser legendary items disintegrate if exposed for 45 seconds or more. Items that are unbreakable would have their rank permanently reduced by one if exposed for 30 seconds or more.

All targets within the area lose 5% (+-Tier Difference% for lower or higher tier targets) of their maximum HP per second while exposed to the corrosive sand. Targets that die in the cursed area continue to have their soul corroded until the end of the spell duration. Soul corrodes at 3% (+-Tier Difference %) per second after death.

When cast over a hexed area, the effects of the hex are raised by 1 tier (up to tier 6) or 200%.

Duration: 50 seconds

Cooldown: 24 hours

Learning condition: Achieve 95% Skill Completion Rate

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[Experience Steal] (Hex)

Requires: Antiquity Witch

Antiquity Witch’s Origin Hex (Tier 4 Apex Hex)

Draw a hex in a 500 yard circle by sacrificing 500,000 HP. All targets within the hexed area will lose 1% of their current experience points per second, irrespective of level, tier or elemental resistance. 10% of the experience loss would be transferred to the caster.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 12 hours

Learning condition: Draw a hex within 3 seconds under a custom environment.

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Rain couldn’t believe the options she was provided. Was it a brilliant stroke of luck that the “Particulate Corrosion” felt amazingly close to a tiered up version of “Acid Rain”? Both were extremely rare apex legacy curses. She reviewed the simulation for five minutes and determined she could learn it within the requisite time. While the origin hex felt captivating, drawing it within three seconds felt like a fool’s dream. It was better to attempt the hex after gaining a Tier 4 physique.

Within the next 10 minutes, Rain created an illusory model using five illusions. Concentration cost be damned as she was racing against time. It was only five minutes later that she made her first attempt at the curse.

System: Particulate Corrosion activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 78%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

Rain ran a few more mental simulations. Her memory of learning Acid Rain was still fresh in her mind. She dropped one illusory copy and tried mental simulations again to identify the challenges it would throw. She figured out a strategy and attempted the curse 3 minutes later.

System: Particulate Corrosion activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 90%. Learning condition not met. You may use it again in 60 seconds.

A couple of minutes later Rain had an accomplished and confident look on her face. She figured out that she needed to move each of the illusions at different paces to create the slithering effect faintly visible in the simulation video. She completed a few mental simulations and attempted the curse again.

System: Particulate Corrosion activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 98%. Learning conditions met. Do you wish to be promoted into a Peak Tier 4 Antiquity Witch?

Rain declined the prompt and set out to cast the curse again, making sure she nailed it perfectly.

System: Particulate Corrosion activated successfully. Skill Completion Rate, 101%. Learning conditions met. Do you wish to be promoted into an Apex Tier 4 Antiquity Witch?

“Promote!”

System: Congratulations! You have become a Tier 4 Antiquity Witch. You have activated the Apex Legacy Core. All Basic Attributes +2,200, Life Rating +2, all Resistances +250, Mana recovery rate increased by 120%, all Basic Attributes increased by 100%, and physique increased by 180%. All physical and magical attacks below Tier 4 received will be weakened by 40%. Rewarding 120 Legacy Skill Points.

System: As an Antiquity witch, the laws of this realm will not affect your affinity gain. You can gain affinity to any of the 10 basic elements that constitute your legacy up to a max of 100%. Supreme elements that are not aligned as primary or secondary will still be taxed 50% of affinity gain. You can now gain affinity for up to 2 supreme elements without the need to max out a single one.

System: Tier 4 Class Reward: You have gained 55% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 85%

Rain brushed aside the system prompts as she was too fixated by the hex. She still had 28 minutes left to pick up the hex and a tier 4 physique could boost her chances by another 25%. Her first attempt took her 3.5 seconds without any distraction.

She triggered the system console to enter the custom environment to draw the hex. The space felt familiar to Jealous witch’s training area. She couldn’t cast any spells or use skills. Attribute bonuses from non-legacy items were disabled. Her first attempt at drawing a hex took her 4 seconds. She started drawing hexes like “Life Theft”, that she previously learnt to familiarise herself with the defence mechanisms.

After toiling around for 10 minutes she had an epiphany. She remembered how the witches drew the ritual circle for cleansing the “Elder Staff”. Even though the individual circles were symmetric, the final circle looked more like a hex due to various overlaps. She immediately started visualising the hex as a series of symmetric objects. She deduced she needed 5 symmetrical objects and a non-symmetrical star shaped core to join the various objects together. She executed the secret casting technique to generate 5 illusions and trained each one to draw one symmetrical object.

She had 6 more minutes, or roughly 10 tries, to learn the hex. She lost buckets of concentration with each attempt. She got the illusions working on symmetrical objects, while she drew the star. It took her five attempts before she could draw the hex correctly. She was still short of time.

It was the 8th attempt that she managed to finally draw the hex, moments before the timer expired.

System: Experience Steal activated successfully. Time to completion: 2:58 seconds. Learning conditions met. You have successfully learnt this origin hex.

Rain was teleported out of the custom environment. When she returned to the hideout she dropped to the floor in a pool of sweat.

Quest update: You have completed stage 2 of lesser legendary quest “Sinner’s Circle” with an SSS ranking. Return to Jealous Witch to claim your reward and further instructions.


	14. God Slayer Antiquity Witch

She lay motionless and almost lifeless on the floor, with a wide smile on her face. She logged out to rest and slept for 8 hours before logging back in to check on the hideout. Nothing much had changed in her absence. She proceeded to absorb the affinity stones she received from various witches.

System: You have gained 5% affinity with darkness mana. Total affinity is now 5%

System: You have gained 6% affinity with darkness mana. Total affinity is now 11%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with darkness mana. Total affinity is now 36%

System: You have gained 10% affinity with light mana. Total affinity is now 10%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with death mana. Total affinity is now 25%

System: You have gained 8% affinity with magnetism mana. Total affinity is now 8%

System: You have gained 15% affinity with electric mana. Total affinity is now 15%

She was left with 4 affinity stones with 1 for Air, 2 for Void and 1 for Space. She decided to load up on as many affinity stones and crystals before deciding on a secondary alignment. Absorbing affinity without alignment would be a sore waste. She proceeded to learn the soul hex.

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Soul Drain/Revitalise (Peak Tier 4 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 50 yard circle sacrificing 300,000 life force and 2% illusion affinity. You can use the hex in one of the following ways:

  1. Soul Drain (default): drain 3% (+-Tier Difference %) of the target’s soul per second for the full duration of the spell.
  2. Invert the hex laterally to revitalise weakened souls at 6% (+-Tier Difference %) per second for the full duration of the spell. Fully revitalised souls continue being strengthened at 1% per second to a maximum of 15%. Souls can only be strengthened once per tier.



Duration: 45 seconds

Cooldown: 12 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [50% illusion + 80% earth + 80% fire + 25% water + 25% air].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [90% illusion + 100% earth + 100% fire + 75% water + 50% air].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

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“So there is a catch!” Rain exclaimed. It was natural that the system would not let her gain power over the supreme elements so easily. She learned how to draw the hex and decided not to power it uselessly. She then checked out the other 4 legacy spells and 2 hexes she received from the various witches. She had enough elemental affinity to learn 2 spells and 1 of the hexes.

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Phantom Labyrinth (Peak Tier 4 Legacy Spell)

Convert a custom size area up to 400x400 yard into a labyrinth containing a mix of real and illusory flora. All targets trapped inside will have their movement speed reduced by 50% and lose flight ability. This spell doesn’t do any damage to the targets. When attacked the labyrinth reflects 90% of the damage it receives to all targets within 10 yards radius.

Requirements: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [50% illusion + 90% earth + 50% air + 30% water].

Basic teleportation can be disabled within the labyrinth with 25% space affinity. Teleportation skills up to Tier 5 can be disabled within the labyrinth with 75% space + 25% time affinity

This spell can be stacked on other legacy spells or hexes without impacting the labyrinth.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Cast the spell 50 times consecutively with a 100% completion rate to learn it.

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Rain had found the perfect solution to stopping targets from leaving her hex areas. This spell was passed to her by the younger Starfire sister.

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Baptism by Fire (Peak Tier 4 Legacy Curse)

Douse a single target with soul fire, causing 1500% divine damage and 1500% fire damage and additional 1000% fire damage per second over 8 seconds. Targets who die as a result of this attack would have their attributes permanently reduced by 5%, souls weakened for 30 days and suffer 5 times the death penalty.

Requirements: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [75% illusion + 100% fire + 35% darkness].

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate consecutively to learn it. 

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Bewitched (Apex Tier 4 Hex)

Plant a hex on an 800 yard circle sacrificing 500,000 life force.

Everybody below your tier or soul level, whichever is higher, will be put in a trance like state for 30 seconds.

Targets at or above tier or soul level, will have a 60% – Tier Difference x 15% chance of being put in a trance. Targets who are immobilised will have the success percentage doubled.

Those who avoid trance might have their souls weakened by 15% - Tier Difference x 2%.

All forms of recovery and rejuvenation will be disabled while in trance.

Cooldown: 4 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [75% illusion + 100% fire + 90% earth + 50% water + 25% air].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% illusion + 100% earth + 100% fire + 95% water + 75% air].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

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Rain spent 5000 skill mastery points to upgrade “Earth Mother’s Touch”, her most potent rejuvenation skill to tier 4. Another 15000 skill mastery points to upgrade “Armageddon”, “Summon Earth Elemental” and “Air Spirit Caller” to tier 4.

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Earth Mother’s Touch (Tier 4 Spell)

Recover 50% HP and Mana immediately. Recover 5% additional HP, Mana, Stamina and Concentration every second for next 30 seconds.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Summon Earth Elemental (Tier 4 Spell)

Summons 5 earth elementals to fight for you for 4 minutes. Each elemental is summoned at user’s +20 level and spells tier.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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Air Spirit Caller (Tier 4 Spell)

Summons 5 air elementals to fight for you for 120 seconds. 1st elemental would be 20 levels higher than the caster and 1 tier higher than the spell. Other 4 elementals are 10 levels higher than the caster and same tier as the spell.

Cooldown: 5 hours

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She suddenly remembered her new class and opened the legacy skills panel to check on new skills to learn. Antiquity witch seemed like a transcendental legacy encompassing legacies of quite a few covens. She had access to over 500 legacy skills and hexes at various tiers. The antiquity witch section was however too small, with only 5 skills on offer, 1 of which she had already learnt. Each of other 4 skills cost more than 250 legacy points. The skill that caught her eye was “Elemental Awakening” a legacy over-tier berserk skill.

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Elemental Awakening (Apex Tier 4 Legacy Spell)

The effects of this spell depend on the caster’s tier.

Tier 4 casters: Every 100% affinity with basic elements or 50% affinity with supreme elements raises your tier by 20%. Tier can be raised to a maximum of apex tier 5.

Attributes+ 400%, Physique + 100%, Attack Damage +250%, Defence +300%, Movement and Casting Speed +300%

Tier 5 casters: Every 100% affinity with basic elements or 50% affinity with supreme elements raises your tier by 10%. Tier can be raised to a maximum of peak tier 6.

Attributes+ 600%, Physique + 150%, Attack Damage +400%, Defence +400%, Movement and Casting Speed +500%, Life Rating + 1

Tier 6 casters: Every 100% affinity with basic elements or 50% affinity with supreme elements raises your tier by 5%. Tier can be raised to a maximum of apex tier 6.

Attributes+ 750%, Physique + 250%, Attack Damage +600%, Defence +500%, Movement and Casting Speed +700%, Life Rating + 2

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

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She could raise her tier by 100%, bringing it to an apex tier 5 ceiling. She spent 300 legacy skill points to learn “Elemental Awakening”. She still had 200 legacy skill points that she could use to upgrade one more curse to tier 4. She took out the legendary title to equip it.

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God Slayer (Legendary Title)

User Restriction: Tier 4 or above.

Item Requirement: Strength 4000, Agility 4000, Intelligence 4000, Endurance 4000, Vitality 4000

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Defeated a God in a single combat while below Tier 5)

Those with the strength to overpower the Gods are respected by all and sundry. The holder of this title will be recognised as Marquis or equivalent throughout God’s Domain.

All resistances +500. Skill completion rate +7%. Damage +350%. Defence +250%. Main attribute +250%. Other attributes +200%. Hidden attributes +150%. Physique +80%. Life Rating +2. Movement Speed +200%. Attack Speed +150%.

Additional Passive Skill 1: God Mode

At user tier 4: Level +20 (up to maximum of 200) and Tier +1 whenever within 200 yards of 1 God ranked or 10 Tier 5 or 50 Tier 4 enemies.

At user tier 5: Level +15 (up to maximum of 205) and Tier +1 (up to maximum of Advanced Tier 6) whenever within 400 yards of 1 God ranked or 50 Tier 5 enemies.

At user tier 6: Level +10 (up to maximum of 210) and Minor tier +1 (up to maximum of Apex Tier 6) whenever within 600 yards of 5 or more God ranked enemies.

Additional Passive Skill 2: Unencumbered

User is immune to all control skills. Control skills below the user tier will rebound on the caster. All debuffs -50%

Additional Passive Skill 3: Blood Fury

Every 10% HP loss results in 5% increase in attributes, movement and attack speed.

All skill cooldowns (for learned skills and currently equipped equipment skills) reset if HP falls below 5% (Triggered once every 2 hours).

Additional Active Skill 1: Quantum Teleport

Teleport to any location irrespective of distance or any restrictions imposed by the area. User will be invulnerable for 5 seconds after the teleport.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Slayer’s Terror

Induce a fear debuff in all enemies below the user tier within 100 yards immobilizing them. Suppress all enemies by 25%. Movement and attack speed of same tier or higher targets reduced by 40% - Tier difference x 10%

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3: Summon Inner Self

Summons a doppelganger with the same attributes, skills and equipment as the user. The doppelganger replaces the user, turning the user invisible until they attack, defend or cast. All skills are executed by the doppelganger at 100% completion rate and upgraded to doppelganger’s tier. User can swap positions with the doppelganger anytime. The position will be auto-swapped if the user’s HP is depleted by the last attack.

Duration: 2 minutes

Cooldown: 15 minutes

Title holders will be treated as 7-star rank adventures in all Adventurer Associations.

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Thanks to attribute boost from tier upgrade and affinity boost Rain was able to equip the title with ease. She felt an immense ripple of power surging through her body. If not for the boost in the physique and life rating she would have exploded. It took her almost a minute to stabilise and acclimatise herself with her new strength. She left her room to look for the Jealous witch. All the witches were gathered at the top floor of the hideout, hopelessly looking at the horizon with teary eyes. The depressing atmosphere was too overbearing for any of them to notice her approaching.

“Why is everybody so quiet? Did something happen?” Rain asked.


	15. Effects of Experience Steal

“Queen Asara is dead. The coven of Augustus is no more.” Kijlstra stated in a broken voice.

Death of the queen, the sheer deluge of helplessness from being orphaned, and the remorse of not being there to protect her had filled the atmosphere with an impeccable sense of gloom. Even if the queen was namesake, she was an institution in herself, like a mother giving hope and strength to her coven. None of the witches had the strength in their hearts to act against the queen. In the millions of years of their shared heritage, even the most ruthless of the fallen would heed to the call of their queen, and willingly sacrifice their lives in her service. It was a bond that was stronger than blood. Such was the power of the code. The death was mourned by the coven and the fallen alike. Even someone as independent and rebellious like Eleanor felt a gaping hole in her soul.

“We were supposed to protect her with our lives. Here we are now, hiding like cowards. How can we ever face ourselves again? Our lives are meaningless now” Kijlstra said in a solemn voice.

“We should have pressed on, marched on Sin and taken over the tower. Maybe we could have bought the queen some time to escape. We are utter failures” Tokie stated.

“There is no need to overreact sister Tokie. Sin had her enslaved 1000 years ago. There must be a reason he kept her alive for so long. Something must have worried him all this while and we need to find out what he feared.” the Jealous witch stated.

“He controlled the coven through the queen. Without her, there would be no coven and the contract would be void. Maybe now that the curse is broken he had no further need for her?” Rain tried to offer some insight.

“Now the only purpose we are left with is to avenge her death and exterminate Sin” Adriana stated, looking at the horizon, causing everyone present to strengthen their resolve.

“Oh what came over you? You feel so much more powerful!” Tokie exclaimed looking at Rain.

“I just got promoted to Tier 4” she stated looking at Eleanor, “So are you going to give me a reward for completing the quest?”

“I have nothing to give you. I cancelled the quest after learning that the curse was broken. Your tier promotion was merely an entry criteria for the place I wanted to send you to locate the whereabouts of Kapoornakh” Eleanor answered with a frown.

“Don’t tell me you wanted to send her to the sinner’s circle” Kijlstra asked with a horrified look.

“Obviously I wanted to send her there. I would have given her something to keep her safe though. It’s not that any of us who had anything to do with coven of Augustus can safely negate the corruption in that environment” Eleanor replied

“I can still go there and take a look. Surely something worth protecting lies there” Rain asked.

“Sin has bolstered his forces and locked this place down. I wanted to get out and rally the dryads for help but was unable to. There is simply no way out of here” Eleanor replied.

“I can go. Tell me where this place is and how to win the dryads trust. I believe that the teleportation array outside the world gate still works” Rain replied confidently.

The Jealous witch took a deep look at her and passed her a token and a pitcher full of blood. “Show this token to the elders of the dryads and tell them I sent you pleading for help. This pitcher will help you activate the teleportation array to allow the allies entry. You can explore the sinner’s circle after the war” she explained.

“Before I leave is it possible to access your training room? There are some spells and hexes I need to learn and upgrade” Rain requested. The jealous witch simply opened a portal to allow Rain to enter.

Rain’s intuition was pricking her like a thorn all the time she was speaking to the witches. There was something about the way the witches behaved that had her radar go berserk. Kijlstra looked broken but felt indifferent, Eleanor looked indifferent but was broken to the core and Tokie was sad but was trying to appear cheerful. Adriana was the only one in a deep state of mourning, even though she had rebelled against the queen and was forced to leave the coven. There was a probing gaze from Kijlstra followed by a brief sigh of disappointment when she announced her tier 4 status. It felt like another experiment gone wrong.

“Probably it’s their way of coping with a traumatic event” she decided to dismiss her concerns. She spent the next 15 hours learning “Phantom Labyrinth”, “Baptism by Fire” and practised “Elemental Awakening” to familiarise herself with the berserk mode. She also practised hexes that had upgraded to tier 4 like “Pins and Needles”, “Killing Fields”, “Silent Degradation”, “Life Theft” and the newly acquired “Soul Drain/Revitalise”, “Bewitched” and “Experience Steal”.

Satisfied with her progress, she took out the “Legacy Technique Crystal” to examine its contents.

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Hexotic Trap (Legacy Footwork Technique)

Use your footwork and staff to draw hexes in a 5 yard circle while you engage in melee combat. The hexes can be triggered as traps, instantly displaying 50% of their power without the need for the targets to stay in the hexed zone for longer periods of time. Your life force consumption is reduced by 50% for basic and advanced hexes, 40% for peak hexes and 25% for apex hexes.

E.g. you can trap a target within Tier 3 Life Drain to instantly drain 30% of their HP rather than draining 3% HP per second for next 20 seconds, through the same hex.

The traps exist for 5 to 10 seconds and can be activated either automatically when targets step on them, time delayed or ad-hoc basis. Time delay triggers require mana consumption and cannot be used in silenced or dead zones. Ad-hoc basis requires additional life force sacrifice equal to 10% of original hex. Not applicable to hexes that involve summoning.

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She spent 15 hours to learn the technique and bring her level of mastery to Bronze status. The training environment reacted to her legacy technique and spawned various illusions to thwart her attempts. Through the technique she gained a better understanding of the underlying principles of elemental binding used in formulating hexes. The sheer number of layers in a peak hexes were mindboggling, yet they somehow knitted together without corrupting each other. She decided to use this knowledge to craft her own hexes at a later stage. She spent the next 12 hours experimenting with various hexes she learnt, especially the origin hex. She had managed to raise her mastery to Advanced Bronze rank in the process. She could raise this number only through combat practice and experience. She logged out to rest for 6 hours before logging back in. She was left with one last bottle of S-rank nutrient fluid after her training session.

When Rain emerged from the training room, she realised that the witches were all geared up and ready for battle. She could sense dark forces combing the area but refusing to come within 200 yards of the hideout.

“Are they trying to lure us out?” Tokie asked.

“No, they seem afraid of us. After losing both his generals Sin must have asked them not to engage us. They seem to be looking for someone” Adriana answered

“Someone is approaching us from the south west. That person is invisible, but I can sense their life force. It’s at least Tier 5.” Rain felt the twitch from the necklace. “Within 50 yards now” she alerted everyone after noticing a soul marker on the intruder. The dark forces were still busy searching outside the 200 yards range, sniffing every nook and cranny. Rain felt her power grow all of a sudden, “God Mode” was activated signifying presence of at least 10 Tier 5 players in her vicinity. The answer revealed itself as 50 targets entered the ‘visible’ range of the dark seer’s eye. “Ok 50 invisible life forces have just arrived within 100 yards, at least 20 are Tier 5. They seem to slowly move towards the other Tier 5 target who’s at our door step” Rain’s running commentary was irritating the Jealous witch.

“The warden is here. Shall we let her in or kill her?” Jealous witch clarified the situation, “I would love to torture that betrayer before I kill her”

“It’s obvious they are after her and closing onto her quickly. I think we should let her in and kill all the rest. I’ll restrain her before we let her in” Adriana chimed.

“Deal” Eleanor chimed as she drew hexes with both her hands. One was quicksand and the other was something Rain, who was busy dual hexing herself, had never seen before. Eleanor had a nod of approval when she saw Rain match her speed in drawing hexes. She didn’t realise that Rain had already been boosted to tier 5.

An invisible static energy filled the 100 yard circle, catching all the 50 intruders by surprise and stunning them. Rain unleashed “Experience Steal” and topped it up with “Silent Degradation”, boosting the EXP gain from 10% per second to 15% per second. The dark forces didn’t notice anything as Jealous Witch had ensured that the invisible state of the intruders was not compromised for at least 30 seconds. Eleanor and Adriana were busy retraining the warden, after she emerged from the quicksand and locked her in an elemental prison to ensure she couldn’t harm them in any way. 10 seconds later she was amazed to notice that the 50 people she had trapped were losing life force faster than anticipated, despite having their HP at 100%. Her jaws were wide open with surprise when she saw Rain’s level steadily increasing over time, despite no deaths in the vicinity. She drew a silent life drain hex on the target area to attack the targets. Rain drew “Life Theft” and stacked it on top of Jealous Witch’s hex to recover her HP. She drew “Pins and Needles” and powered it 5 seconds later, to ensure that the targets stayed immobile for the next 15 seconds. Caught between EXP and HP drain, the intruders lasted another 13 seconds before crumbling to the ground. Only when their bodies vanished, leaving items behind, did the rest of the dark forces realise that they were under attack. They quickly dispersed to save their lives.

Rain blinked down to collect the souls and equipment and cast elemental blessing to protect her from the life drain. Her “God Mode” status had disappeared as well. She was back inside the hideout 5 seconds later. She stole almost 1.3 trillion EXP from a single battle boosting her from Level 120 to 32% of Level 164! EXP from killing the 50 intruders pushed her level to 50% of Level 165. She also gained 18% affinity towards illusion due to the Antiquity witch bonus, pushing her total beyond 100%. Stealing EXP from higher levelled targets was more profitable than killing them.

System: You have gained 18% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 100%. Received an affinity crystal with 3% illusion affinity.

As soon as she received the message, her armour started to evolve. The 100% affinity had allowed her to unlock the next rank.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Skin of Elemental Origins (Lesser Legendary Rank, Affinity Growth Type, Cloth Armour Set)

Consists of a total 3 pieces. Robe, Gloves and Shoes

Equipment Requirements: Strength 3000, Agility 4000, Intelligence 5000

Equipment Restrictions: Can only be equipped by a witch with 100% affinity towards all basic elements in her realm and unlocked at least 1 supreme element. All 3 pieces must be worn together to gain bonuses.

Defence +5000, Intelligence +4000, Agility +3000, Strength +2400, Vitality +2400, Endurance +1200

All hidden attributes: +2500

When equipped

Defence against physical attacks: + 2 x level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Defence against elemental attacks (mastered by user): + 5 x level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Defence against other magical attacks: + 3 x level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

All basic attributes: + level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

All hidden attributes: + level x tier x total supreme aligned affinity

Casting speed +30%

Spell Completion Rate +5%

All healing and buffs received +25%

Movement and attack speed +50%

Stamina and Concentration consumption -20%

All item level requirements reduced by 20 Levels.

Robe Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Hexathon

Area of coverage for all hexes increased by 15 yards. Life force consumption reduced by 25%. Cooldown reduced by 50%. Stackable hexes gain additional 20% power.

Reduces damage received from hexes by 40%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Life Support

When below 10% HP, HP loss reduced by 50%. All healing effects under life support +500%

Additional Active Skill 1 – Monster’s Best Friend

Gives you a 40% chance to befriend a monster of the same tier and +Tier Difference*10%. The befriended monster can be used as a mount for 12 hours. While the monster would defend you if you are attacked, there is only a 50% chance that the monster would aid you in a fight.

Gain +10 favourability with the befriended monster, increasing your chance of befriending it again by 10% (max 100%) after 1 natural day.

Cooldown: 2 hours.

Additional Active Skill 2 – Elemental Shield

Grants you a life shield that absorbs damage worth 5 x Maximum HP, increases casting speed by 15% and movement speed by 100%.

Shield is capable of recovering damage at twice the caster’s regeneration rate. All healing effects restore shield by 200% of healing received.

Duration: 120 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 3 – Spatial Barrier

Disable basic teleportation in 1000 yards around the caster. All teleportation scrolls/skills below tier 4 will be disabled.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Gloves Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Safer Collaterals

Damage to all friendly units will be reduced by 85%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Precision Strike

Grants a 40% chance that an attack would alter its trajectory to strike from a blind spot.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Elemental Prison

Imprison one target, up to 1 tier higher, in an elemental prison for 45 seconds. Target can be attacked using legacy spells without affecting the prison. Target must break out of prison before attacking others. Each attack will reflect 15% damage back to the attacker.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 2 – Switch Target

Divert an attack from its intended target to another target at 100% damage. Rebounding the attack on caster reduces the damage to 50%

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Shoes Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Soundless Motion

Witch’s movements on any type of surface, even at maximum speed, do not produce any sound.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Timing and Placement

When activated prior to casting a spell or hex, the witch would be teleported to any predetermined point within 200 yards. After casting is complete the witch will be teleported back to the initial spot.

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Additional Active Skill 2 – Swap Position

Swap position with any target physically in 150 yards.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Bound Set Equipment Bonus

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Legacy Discount

All legacy spells will consume 35% lesser mana.

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain

Cannot be traded.

Cannot be dropped.

Conjured out of elements from seven different realms and bound together by seals of seven witch queens, this armour would be awarded to the witch who had conquered all basic elements and unlocked at least 1 supreme element from their realm.

This armour evolves by half rank for the next supreme element mastered.

Supreme elements mastered: Currently (1/3) [Illusion]. Please choose a Secondary Alignment.

Total supreme aligned affinity (Illusion): 100%

Equipment rank: Lesser Legendary 0%

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	16. Book of Forbidden Magic

Rain didn’t want to raise too many eyebrows. Her levelling spree was unprecedented and it was bound to raise some uncomfortable questions. She decided to upgrade “Voidwalker’s Staff”, pumping 802,089,843,750 EXP to upgrade it to Fragmented Legendary Level 9. She sank 411,328,125,000 EXP to upgrade “Ring of Broken Promises” to Fragmented Legendary Level 8 causing her level to fall back to 74% of level 125. Satisfied with the results she decided to check on the rest.

The witches were cremating the warden inside the elemental graveyard within the hideout. This made her angry as this place was reserved for the witches who made the extreme sacrifice in their fight against Sin. She approached Tokie to find out what transpired.

“She brought us the book that was used to summon Sin into this world. The queen defied Sin and fully recharged the book by sacrificing her life. We can use this book to send Sin back to wherever he came from.” Tokie summarised the events.

“Why not just kill him? You think we aren’t strong enough?” Rain asked, frowning at the idea of unsummoning Sin.

“Even if we pool all our power and merge all our bodies we still won’t be able to defeat Sin” Tokie stated with a dejected look. “Look at it this way. Even the Gods could only restrain Sin and lock him away in this world. You think they didn’t try to kill him and end his dominion over the darkness?” she added, trying to pacify Rain.

“My question still stands. Why can’t we kill him?” Rain asked, slightly raising her voice.

“Because he is extremely resistant to the elements of this world. Only those who have mastered the supreme elements of Space, Time, Illusion and Void can hope to reduce his HP below 10%. I do not know any witch that can unlock more than 3 supreme elements, so forget about mastering them. Only Ancient Gods have the capability of mastering more than 3 supreme elements” Kijlstra, who was listening to their conversation, stated with a tinge of disappointment in her tone.

“So we can reduce his HP to 10%. Beyond that we only wait for our deaths? Are you sure your information is correct?” Eleanor asked with a puzzled expression. All her plans were just blown to bits.

“Yes. Do you think the queen was not strong enough to take him on? Besides, this observation was made by one of the Gods when they experimented with various attack patterns. I have no reason not to believe them. Even the dryad mother’s life drain did not budge his HP below 10%. I do not know of any spell that is better at killing someone” Kijlstra clarified.

“So what happens now? We have the book. Can we unsummon him?” Tokie asked.

“Nope. We need to go to the sinner’s circle to make it work. We don’t have enough witches to power the ceremony, even if we magically manage to escape this place” Kijlstra stated.

“Will Sin come here to personally finish all of us and retrieve the book?” Rain asked.

“No. He can’t step on any land beyond 500 yards of the tower. If he does his soul would weaken and he will become crippled. He definitely can keep sending his lackeys over for us to beat.” Kijlstra answered.

“Well he definitely doesn’t have any more God ranked generals, else he would have sent them to hunt the warden down” Tokie chimed.

“We shouldn’t consider using the book at all. The way I see it, it could just be an elaborate trap to get us to do something stupid. I would never trust any book by its cover after encountering the Elder Staff. Especially one that my enemy has courteously handed over” Rain stated resolutely. Those words stunned everybody in the room. “I do not think the warden came here out of her own conviction or goodwill. She was sent here by Sin to specifically deliver the book. Of this I am sure.”

“Care to explain?” the Jealous witch asked.

“When warden made her way here, she had a soul marker. One very similar to what I have come across in my quests in the undead valley. If the bearer of the mark does not do what the marker dictates, their soul would be shattered. The fact that warden died means that she defied the order or did something she wasn’t supposed to. So can you guys tell me exactly what she said or did?” Rain explained to her semi petrified audience.

“She wanted to pass the book to Kijlstra, then she had some withdrawal symptoms when I snatched the book instead. She seemed to calm down a bit when I told her I’ll pass this to her. Then suddenly she did a ‘No’ sign and passed away. I had my doubts about her story but I never connected the dots until you explained it to me. Surely this is the same book we used to summon Sin and it carries the life force signature of our Queen, and now I am sure there is something else to it as well” Tokie explained. Rain passed her the empty spatial pouch and asked her to store the book inside it and pass it over. When Rain appraised the book using the Eyes of Dark Seer she found something unusual.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Book of Forbidden Magic (Legendary Rank, Bag Item)

Only a queen witch that has passed the book’s trial is allowed to view its contents.

Others 





The book loses its charge depending on the power needed to cast a spell. Only the life force of a queen can replenish its power.

Current charging status: 100%

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“OK. Something is definitely wrong with the book. If an appraisal throws garbage it only means that you need a specific key to decrypt the information” I suggest I hold on to this book until I can find someone who knows how to decrypt this thing.

‘Does this book needed a powerful soul to be sacrificed?’ Rain thought over the possibility. Kijlstra would be the perfect sacrifice and beyond her no other witch stood a chance to become a queen in future. Hence, using the book to eliminate her only meant that the war would be over sooner than later. She further added “I wouldn’t want you guys to assume that they don’t have any God ranked generals. That’s a sure way to let our guard down and become easy prey”

“So what now. We are trapped here forever?” Tokie asked.

“There must be a way for Sin to track if Kijlstra is still alive or not. As long as she is here he won’t act in a rash manner. So we are in a stalemate for now. Let me use this time to check out the book’s secrets. There must be someone who can help us out.” Rain stated.

Something still did not add up in her head. Sin couldn’t be underestimated and she was sure things would change for the worse if she revealed her “antiquity witch” class. Currently she was only tier 4 and could pass under the radar without raising any concerns. She would like to maintain the status quo. She also suspected there was a mole in the team. Kijlstra was the target and easy to influence. Eleanor didn’t trust anyone. Adriana was a prisoner in the Elder Staff long before the curse took effect. Tokie was the only one left, she was like a beacon of cheerfulness and innocence, a perfect trap, yet nothing could stick to her.

“What’s another 1000 years” Eleanor chimed in, causing everybody to burst into laughter.

“Could you guys tell me more about the circle? Where is it located and what to expect down there?” Rain asked the gathering.

“The sinner’s circle was the place where Sin was summoned. It was the only place in this continent where the veins of earth, water, fire and void intermingled, creating an environment that boosted the power of all rituals. It was our coven’s seat of power, a sacred place for all of us. We called it Andal. All that changed when Sin arrived. He doused the fire vein and set up a darkness vein using the combined powers of the witches and the dryads. We had already lost a chunk of our power after our God Augustus fell in battle. Sin proved to be an ideal replacement as he empowered us through the power of darkness and void and helped us defeat the forces of abyss and the subsequent assault by the legions of undead. Even though he honoured the summoning contract to the letter, his real nature wasn’t revealed until our souls started twisting and were corrupted by the same mystic energy that empowered us. The power we gained had consequences we weren’t prepared for. The summoning contract became our curse and we became sinners. Only death and corruption awaits anyone who wishes to venture to Andal. Even Sin’s puppets who managed to sneak in could never escape their fate” Kijlstra narrated the story. 

“Luckily the dryad mother returned after the war and noticed our corruption. She rallied the Gods for help and they obliged by waging war against Sin. They sealed the circle in an outer world, cutting off his primary source of power and later realised that he couldn’t be killed without the combined power of 4 elements. So they sealed him in the queen’s castle using a soul seal and sealed the entire area in this outer world to stop his corruption from spreading to the rest of the places. We decided to make amends and attacked the queen, with her permission, to find a way out of the coven and this curse. We became the fallen of Augustus and stood guard for 1000 years against forces of Sin trying to set him free” Tokie stated

“Then why are we hiding here, instead of protecting the seal?” Rain asked.

“This tower is the last of the 5 strongholds the gods setup. As long as this tower stands, the seal can’t be touched. Anyone with void affinity would be heavily suppressed by this tower. Those with high amounts of darkness affinity would be weakened considerably. Sin’s lackeys are powerless here” Tokie answered

“How is Sin able to bolster his forces when the other world is sealed?” Rain asked

“When Sin realised that the circle tower was being sealed, he forced the queen to link it up with her palace through forbidden magic. A lot of his troops caught inside the circle were teleported here. When they die, their souls are harvested using some tool and they are reborn with new bodies. The attack we launched earlier was based on a tip-off about the location of this harvester device. We wanted to take it out and dwindle his troops.” Tokie answered.

“Surprisingly, the troops that assaulted the tower today were a mere fraction of what he usually sends over. I wonder if his harvester is broken” Kijlstra noted.

“I think they are spooked by Kapoornakh’s soul’s destruction” Adriana weighed in.

“And what about the primordial heart? Why were you not affected by it?” Rain asked Eleanor.

“Only those exposed to the mystical energy from the circle are empowered by the primordial gas. The rest are suppressed. Once you absorb enough of the energy it seems to create a bloodline that passes from generation to generation, enslaving the entirety of a clan into servitude. Sister Eleanor was never exposed to it” Kijlstra stated.

“Hahaha, you sound like you all purposely did it, for my own benefit. What a joke! I had opposed their plans of entering into a contract and summoning Sin from the very beginning. All my warnings were ignored. They called me paranoid, doomsayer and a coward and even locked me up for going against the code. If not for the dryad mother’s intervention I would never have gained my freedom. Told you all there are no free lunches in this world, yet you guys were too greedy for power. Look at what you have achieved.” Eleanor frowned, venting her anger at the witches.

“The sinner’s circle was sealed and placed below the biggest mountain in the region to prevent any corruption from seeping to the surface. No one knows what you can expect there after 1000 years. Whatever you find will definitely be corrupted. Ironically, your guild built a city right on top of the mountain. You live atop a goldmine of resources, a land of 4 attributed veins, but you can’t touch it” Eleanor laughed hysterically at the irony.

Rain was stunned by the revelation. Her intuition pricked her again when she noticed cold gleans from Kijlstra and Tokie at the mention of the ‘resources’. The 2 witches were subtly trying to dissuade her from stepping into the area, while Eleanor was enticing her to make a trip. Her resolve to explore the area had suddenly become stronger.

“Ok. I’m going to seek out the dryad mother and get her opinion on this book first. We need to find a solution before more problems arise” Rain spoke, trying to deflect their attention from the sinner's circle.

“No one has seen or heard from the dryad mother for a very long time. The Emerald dryad told me she had left to meet Kijlstra around 150 years after Sin’s defeat and never returned” Eleanor stated.

“I have never left this place and dryad mother has never visited me since Sin’s defeat. I am sure she went somewhere else” Kijlstra said resolutely in an attempt to distance herself from the discussion.

“Oh that’s strange. I was told she went to the sinner’s circle not this wretched place” Eleanor commented, shocking Rain further. She could sense Kijlstra’s discomfort yet again. If even a powerful godly existence could disappear just like that, there was definitely more to that place than mere resources.

“I better get going then” Rain bid farewell to everyone. “And thanks for the advice you gave me before I came here” she spoke slowly and softly to Eleanor, staring deep into her eyes, surprising her. “Wits and judgement” she remembered, and realised that Rain was trying to tell her something. She got the hint that Rain suspected something and decided to keep her guard up all the time. She was amazed that Rain could read the witches like an open book.


	17. Game of Treachery

Rain teleported out using “quantum teleport” to a location roughly 500 yards away from the sinner’s circle. The place was stifling thick with darkness energy. Thanks to “Voidwalker’s staff” and her own darkness affinity, she did not feel any negative effects from this corrosive atmosphere. Her visibility was limited to 20 yards, but the eye of the dark seer had no trouble scanning through 100 yards ahead for signs of life. “One with the Void” ability had made her invisible to monsters in the area.

A strange mystical energy filled this place. It wasn’t like the primordial gas she experienced in the witches hill. Did they really replace a fire vein with a darkness vein? Is it even possible? Why fire with darkness? Did Sin have a method of transmuting fire and darkness into something else? More and more questions started popping up in Rain’s head.

“I need to see for myself to believe” She muttered. She decided to locate the attribute veins and investigate the mystery. She took out the void atlas to check if it was recording her current location. She was pleasantly surprised to find the atlas had a range of 800 yards. A few structures at a distance were visible on the atlas. A large ground sat at the junction of 4 valleys. “That must be the circle and 4 veins” she thought.

The area was exceptionally rich in resources, even the un-excavated ground had mineral deposits, their surreal glow randomly lighting up the route. Rain started climbing up the hill to look for a safe vantage point while avoiding being detected by the natives. After an hour of arduous climb along the desolate landscape she found a spot that overlooked the circle. She cast “View Map” to check out the area around the circle. The forest along the clearing was twisted and corrupted beyond recognition. There were around 15,000 creatures that vaguely resembled a dryad, of which at least 5000 were tier 4, around 1000 were tier 5, rest being tier 3. There were a few structures nestled in the forest canopy that resembled a dryad’s nest. A single tower stood out around 300 yards from a circular runic clearing in the forest. The tower was heavily guarded and looked similar to the one where Rain met the warden.

Rain knew that venturing anywhere near the tower was suicidal. She decided to explore the veins instead to locate the source of the mystical energy. The dryads had no need to mine for crystals, yet there was a small force patrolling the darkness vein. She studied the patrols for a while before tailing them in. The mines ran deep into the other worlds roots. Despite being controlled by the dryads, the mines weren’t uninhabited. There were darklings that had nested in the area and fed on the dark ore and darkness mana crystals. Usually these creatures would disperse upon noticing the dryad’s patrol however, they had been growing in strength over time and had slowly started exerting control over the area.

5 tier 4 dryads were fighting off a mythic ranked darkling. A while later more mythics and grand lords joined the fight, putting the dryads through the ringer. Outmatched and outnumbered, the dryads sealed themselves in one of the narrow mineshafts. This proved to be their undoing as a life drain hex appeared under their feet. They soon perished under the combined assault gifting their souls to the dark seer’s eye. The darklings dispersed after scavenging through their bodies.

Rain sped through the rest of the mine, using void atlas to guide her through the mine channels. One hour later she came across a fork in the mine. One of the sides was magically sealed and obfuscated by illusions. Somebody had gone a great length to ensure nobody located this channel, but nothing could hide from the combination of the eye and the atlas. Rain picked a spot and used “quantum teleportation” to jump inside the hidden passageway. She was amazed to discover a pristine fire vein inside the channel and followed it all the way inside.

“So the fire vein was never really doused, it was merely sealed and hidden. Why would that be?” she muttered to herself.

“Because fire burns down all impurities and cannot be corrupted” a clear and soft voice echoed through the channel, stunning Rain. She had let her guard down but it was too late for complaints.

“Never thought I would come across a witch here. Identify yourself and state your purpose” the voice demanded. Rain could sense a powerful spirit in the vicinity but it was outside its soul visibility range.

“I am Rain. I came here looking for the dryad mother. She hasn’t been seen for ages” she stated

“And you came to put her out of her misery?” the voice demanded

“Misery? I came to seek her advice. Is she in trouble? What possibly could threaten a godly existence?”

“Treachery! Need I say more?” the voice chuckled

“And who am I speaking to?” Rain asked sheepishly

“Ah so rude of me to not introduce myself. I am Astralisara. You might know me by another name. I used to be called Queen Asara over 1000 years ago” the voice stated, closing in within Rain’s visual range. Rain froze at those words and the sight of a magnificent spirit in front of her. “God mode” had activated almost instantaneously, signifying the speed of the spirit’s arrival.

“Esteemed lady, how could you be queen Asara? She died yesterday” Rain stated

“Sin finally put her out of her misery. Something big must have occurred to make him so desperate. I am a fragment of her soul. One that was created long before we summoned Sin to this world” the spirit clarified. “Why do you seek an audience with dryad mother?” she demanded.

“I want to know how to end Sin. She is the only one who fought him before” Rain stated.

“Hahaha. Is that what Kijlstra told you before sending you here?” Asara demanded

“Actually, it was Eleanor who sent me here. She told me this place was the last known location of the dryad mother. Kijlstra was very much opposed to this suggestion but I decided to uncover the truth myself” she answered truthfully.

“Is that the real Kijlstra or the fake one?” Asara asked with a smile, thoroughly stunning Rain. Seeing a dumbstruck Rain she continued, “Kijlstra tricked me into using the book of forbidden magic to create a soul fragment for herself, so I need to know which one you speak of”

“The spirit, sealed in the Origin of Sin, or coven of Augustus. Didn’t she sacrifice her life to evacuate most of the coven and bound herself to the curse so that she could fight on, to break the curse?” Rain felt her head spinning. She had no idea what her intuition was trying to tell her.

“Hahaha. Sacrifice? Evacuate the coven? Hahaha. She sure hasn’t lost her touch. So where did she evacuate the rest of the coven to? I bet she never told you that” Asara was still chuckling at Rain, mocking her like she had been thoroughly owned and played.

“I don’t know. But why would she hide her spirit in the other world? If she is still alive where is her real self? Are Eleanor, Tokie and Adriana in danger?” Rain asked in a worried voice.

“Interesting! She had me create a soul fragment to flaunt it, while hiding her real self. She must have made a soul binding contract to trick someone more powerful than her. It’s fascinating how she uses the code to shatter the code every now and then. Oh boy she always gets what she wants! And more interesting is the fact that Adriana is back. How did she escape that demon’s prison? Tell me all you know” the spirit demanded. Rain narrated the story, cursing and swearing from time to time, realising how thoroughly she had been played. Even though Asara had been tricked and possibly betrayed by her own child, she only had words of admiration for Kijlstra, smiling and wowing at the sheer number of people she had fooled and the list was only growing. Yet everybody loved, admired and even worshipped her.

“Could you tell me what happened to dryad mother” Rain asked curiously.

“Oh nothing much. Our dear Kijlstra lured her here and placed a soul contract on her. That dryad now rules the place on her behalf. After so many years her soul and body has been corrupted beyond recognition. I do not suggest approaching her. You might die even before you get to meet her” Asara stated with a hint of satisfaction in her tone.

That comment triggered tons of alarms in Rain’s head. She immediately concluded that it was Asara who had put a marker on the warden and also on the dryad mother. Kijlstra was just the face of the operation, with Asara pulling the strings from behind.

“Why didn’t you stop her? Dryad mother would have been a great ally against Sin. Weren’t you worried that she will double cross you as well?” Rain asked innocently to test her hypothesis.

“She wouldn’t dare go against her queen” Asara resolutely stated with a smile.

“You do realise that with your ‘death’ the coven has disbanded. There is nothing binding her to the code anymore. What if it was her that riled up Sin to execute you?” Rain asked.

“She is not stupid to make that kind of a mistake” Asara replied.

“You mean she can’t become a queen herself after acquiring your book of forbidden magic? Sin had the warden deliver it to her personally. Now that I think about it, there is nothing stopping her from entering into another soul binding contract since that soul was created to be sacrificed” Rain decided to join their little game of treachery, wiping the smile off Asara’s face.

“She was supposed to bring that book to me. Those are my powers. She cannot control them” Asara stomped her feet in frustration. She hadn’t considered Kijlstra signing a contract with Sin.

“She is not here. She wouldn’t have let me leave if she knew I was coming here. Her spirit may not be able to control the powers now, but what about her real body?” Rain prodded further, enjoying her unease.

“I’ll kill her if she dares to go against me” Asara bellowed with rage.

“Now that she has the dryad mother under her control, do you think you can withstand her and her monstrous army?” Rain decided to rub salt into her wounds.

“Enough! The dryad’s days are over. She’ll be dead the moment I wish it. She should have never crossed my path. Whoever interferes with my plans will meet a horrible end” Asara decreed in anger, slamming her fists in the air. Those words confirmed all of Rain’s theories.

After the death of Augustus, Asara decided to take matters in her own hands and extend her dominion over the entire beastmen empire. She hatched the plan to summon Sin to this world and enslave him to serve her purposes. She created a soul fragment as a failsafe against the stringent clauses of soul contracts. Knowing well enough that her coven’s powers were not sufficient, she lured the dryads to pool their power, under the guise of the threat of war. Things were going well for her until the dryad mother ruined her plans and sealed Sin with the help of the Gods. The soul seal placed on her castle had weakened her to the point that tables had turned and she became enslaved by Sin instead. She knew that the only way out of her plight was to break the curse. She enlisted Kijlstra, her trusted subordinate, into her plan and created her soul fragment to lure Kapoornakh. Kijlstra and most of the coven was decreed as fallen to give them a way out of the contract. Those who refused were ‘evacuated’ to the circle tower and drained of their essence to boost the queen’s soul fragment’s power. Only those who chose to stay and fight were spared of the queen’s vicious appetite for power. Next one to be punished was the dryad mother who trustingly bound her soul to the circle tower in order to end Sin’s control over it. Asara had subverted the ritual to place a soul marker on the dryad, making her a puppet and condemning her to the same corruption she once fought to cleanse.

“Can you prove any of the charges you made?” Asara asked Rain, glaring at her. Rain reached out into her bag and took out the “Elder Staff” to show her.

“You recognise this?” Rain asked, with a sneaky smile on her face. “She had the staff purged and became its owner. I am bonded to her will now, tasked with collecting powerful souls for her to harvest. I don’t need to mention that she has already harvested the original residents” Rain replied, lying through her teeth and feeding the queen her own medicine. Asara was stunned at the sight of the staff. It was easy for her to believe that Kijlstra would have become a lot stronger by now. Rain had already decided their fate. Both Asara and Kijlstra had to die for their sins. The strongest weapon against a trickster was their own insecurity in trusting others.

Asara yelled and crackled like a maniac and started crushing the mining shafts with her bare hands, she took out a crystal ball and slammed it against the floor in a fit of rage and tears. Screams of pain rose through the mist as Kijlstra’s soul was crushed to bits.

“One down. One more to go!” Rain celebrated the desired results of her insinuation. Asara had been thoroughly outplayed and Kijlstra beaten in her own game of treachery.


	18. Fighting a Witch Queen

“Mother! Why?” were the only words Kijlstra could muster before collapsing on the floor. Those words shocked and froze Asara. It was too late. The real Kijlstra, who never betrayed her queen was dead. The overbearing pangs of pain and anguish drove her into fits of rage and insanity.

Rain used this brief moment of the queen's brain fade and sentimental reminiscence to prepare for battle. She equipped ‘Ring of Power’ and summoned her doppelganger. Both of them cast “Elemental Awakening” to boost themselves to 60% of Tier 6 for the next 60 seconds. The doppelganger drew “Soul Drain” using “Hexotic trap” and waited for the right time to power it.

“Obnoxious rat. Prepare to get shredded!” Asara bellowed in rage. She cast a tier 6 AOE curse at the doppelganger in front of her. Strange guillotine like blades descended from all sides. Golden chains rose from the ground below and attempted to bind the doppelganger. Unknown to Asara, the doppelganger was waiting for the right moment to use ‘Swap Position’ and trap Asara in her own hell. The sudden dislocation gave her no time to dodge. Golden chains wrapped around her while billions of damages started appearing on Asara’s head when the guillotine blades assaulted her. Doppelganger’s tier 6 physique allowed Rain to execute the trap technique at Silver level, instantly draining almost 30% of Asara's soul. The damage would have been much higher if Rain had better proficiency with the legacy combat technique. Asara’s massive defences also worked in her favour. She was considerably weakened by the dual assault and was forced to defend herself.

Rain appeared next to her doppelganger. Both of them attacked the queen viciously, in an attempt to clock as much damage as possible while the queen was trapped in her own spell.

“Power Pace”

“Power Drain”, “Power Drain”. They reduced Asara to Tier 5 level 180, weakening her further.

“Power Boost”, “Power Boost”. They forcefully boosted their attack power to advanced Tier 6.

Rain moved closer to interrupt the queen's casting. She used “Elemental Prison” to trap her. The skill proved thoroughly useless against the queen, but it managed to disrupt her spell casting and bought them additional two seconds it took for the queen to break out of prison.

“Enough of your tricks. Now die!” the queen bellowed. She chose to instant cast a Tier 5 curse, rather than wasting another second on casting a Tier 6 curse. Rain had anticipated rapid fire curses and cast “Elemental Shield” and “Elemental Blessing” to protect her. All her protection was shattered when the third curse hit. The fourth curse sent her flying, draining 50% of her HP along with it. Rain knew she miscalculated the moment she hit the ground. A tiered down queen was still a queen who was determined to stamp her out like an insect. Only thing going in her favour was that “Blood Fury” had raised her attributes by 50%, making her more resilient to incoming attacks.

The next two curses sent her tottering down to 2% HP. While her situation was dire, it was only a little far off from her comfort zone. “Life Support” kicked in. “Blood Fury” reset all her skill cooldowns. Most importantly, she had bought enough time for her doppelganger to hex “Bewitched” on the queen, who was moving in to finish her off. Asara was unable to resist the hex since her soul was considerably weakened. Tier deterioration didn’t help her cause either. She was forced into a trance state with immediate effect.

Rain knew that she wouldn’t be immobilised for the entire duration of 30 seconds. She used another “Power Drain” on the queen, reducing her to tier 4, level 160. She cast “Earth Mother’s Touch” to fully restore her HP, making full use of life support's passive ability. It was time to turn the tables on the queen. They had 50 seconds before effects of "Power Boost" and berserk state would crumble, but 50 seconds was eternity for a witch with an immobile target.

Rain sacrificed another 2% illusion affinity to power “Soul Drain” at advanced Tier 6. They channelled their powers and followed it up with “Experience Steal” and “Life Drain”. They further cast “Particulate Corrosion” on a 10x10 yards area above the queen, boosting the power of the hexes by 200%. Asara wasn’t going to run anywhere. They kept channelling one spell after another for the next 5 seconds. Rain was frustrated by how little damage they were dealing to the queen. Even though the queen was suppressed by 50%, reducing her maximum HP from 450 billion to 225 billion, they were only able to deal between 3 to 5 billion damage per second. The queen’s massive defences and resistance to elements ensured that she wouldn’t take much damage even if she just stood there and did nothing. Two tier 6 witches were struggling against a tier 4 witch queen.

The queen's soul was weakened by 35% three seconds later, allowing the eye of dark seer to latch onto it. Rain deduced that only “Bewitched”, “Soul Drain” and “Experience Steal” were effective against the queen since they were either powered by supreme elements or linked to origin spells. She changed tactics. Both Rains used “Summon Voidling” to summon a void serpent and a mutated void hawk, Tier 5 ferocious beasts, to attack the queen. Their classes, equipment and berserk skills had sufficiently boosted their life ratings. The fragmented legendary level 9 “Voidwalker’s staff” could be used to summon creatures up to tier 5. The doppelganger used “Total Obliteration”, while Rain enabled “Gravity Domain” choking the queen down to a cripple and attacking her with elements from other realms. The move paid rich dividends since the queen did not have sufficient affinity and resistances towards other realm elements of void, darkness, light, death, electricity and magnetism. Her HP started to fall by 10 to 12 billion per second under the combined assault.

By the 20th second, Rain hexed “Bewitched” on the immobilised queen. This time her weakened soul level and tier suppression ensured that she would be in a trance for the next 30 seconds. Asara fell 12 seconds later, gifting her soul to the eye. Stealing EXP and killing the queen netted her almost 600 Billion EXP raising her to 93% of level 151 and gave her 10% illusion affinity. She boosted herself back to 100% illusion affinity and received another affinity crystal.

She spent 538,207,031,300 EXP to upgrade the “Voidwalker’s Staff” to Fragmented Legendary level 10, reducing her level to 48% of 129.

Asara dropped a few items including a pearly key, a flask of mucus like potion, a big affinity stone for time element, two tier 6 legacy curses, a tier 6 hex and a book of rituals. Rain picked the drops and examined them.

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Authority of the Queen [Epic Ranked, Bag Item, Key]

The holder of this item is recognised as the wielder of the queen’s authority in her absence.

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Lifeblood of the Witch Queen [Lesser Divine Ranked Material, Consumable]

Boosts class to Witch Queen or equivalent status. Increases maximum affinity cap by 200% for all supreme elements and 300% for all basic elements defined by the class. Allows the queen to unlock 3 other world basic elements of her choice with an affinity cap of 200%.

Gain 100% affinity for space, time, illusion, fire, water, earth and air elements.

Gain 25% affinity for darkness, ruin and life elements.

Tier Restriction: Tier 5 or higher

User Restriction: Must be acknowledged as a Hero or Champion by a God.

The witches were God’s chosen daughters and were granted powers over various elements. The Gods created this essence of power for the most capable of their daughters to help them rule their lands. Lifeblood would drop upon death if the queen loses favour of their God.

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Rain finally understood the reason behind the overwhelming defences of the witch queen. 300% affinity towards fire would have allowed her to bathe in a pool of magma and not feel anything at all. She began exploring the fire vein to uncover the secrets the queen was hiding for so long. The atlas displayed many small shafts and openings, some containing treasure chests and attributed gemstones.

30 minutes later she found a wide circular platform built above the fire vein. An ancient but exquisite instrument sat on top of the platform. It was connected to the ground at four points. A single shaft led out of it, connecting it to the ceiling. A conveyor belt fed some shiny dark crystalline materials to the machine. She cautiously approached the machine, sensing various elemental mana fluctuations when she went around it. This was the place where the veins of earth, water, fire and void overlapped, creating a powerful and special mana environment. Rain checked the atlas to confirm her location. She was surprised to find herself almost 800 yards below the sinner’s circle.

“This must be the source of the mysterious energy emanating from the circle that is twisting and corrupting everything” Rain thought to herself. The conveyor belt was loaded with darkness crystals. It was obvious that the purpose of setting up the darkness vein was to mine for darkness crystals to feed the machine that was powered by the four elemental veins. The dryads patrolled the darkness vein to ensure the supply of crystals.

System: You have discovered a darkness crystal. Do you wish to use it to restore the Voidwalker’s Cloak?

Rain had forgotten all about the cloak needing repair. Rain started leeching off the conveyor belt to restore the cloak. She wanted to shut the machine down, but there was no panel or switch installed on it. She was sure the machine would self-destruct the moment it sensed any sort of tampering. She located the storage container feeding the conveyor belt and started absorbing all the crystals she could find. An automated mechanism kicked in to move the crystals from the chamber above after detecting the depletion of the container. 

Rain finished restoring the cloak a few minutes later.

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Voidwalker’s Cloak (Lesser Legendary Rank, Cloak)

Requirements: 5000 Intelligence, 4800 Agility, 3000 Strength

Class Restrictions: Tier 4 or above Caster type.

All Resistances increased by 250%

All damage received reduced by 40%

Intelligence and Agility increased by 80%

Strength and Endurance increased by 50%

Ignore Level +25

Movement Speed increased by 50%

Attack Speed increased by 45%

Reaction Speed increased by 35%

Additional Passive Skill 1 - Ambiguity

All information about the user would become ambiguous. Different observers will view different versions of the information.

No information would be revealed if the hoodie is equipped.

Users with at least 2 tier higher observation skills will be able to view basic information.

Physique improved by 25%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – One with the Void

User becomes invisible in environments rich in void or darkness energy. The first spell after entering combat state can be cast silently without exposing the caster until they select the target.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Singularity

Only a powerful observation skill can pinpoint your location in a combat. Leave an illusory copy at your last location every time you exceed 40% of your maximum speed during combat. Each copy lasts for 5 seconds. You can freely swap places with any illusory copy. The copies continue to move around and engage in defensive manoeuvres and randomly copy your casting action when not defending.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Camouflage

Blend with the environment for up to 60 minutes making detection difficult. You could be detectable within 8% distance of others' perception range. The first attack from camouflage state can be cast silently without exposing the caster and would result in a critical hit. Movement speed reduced by 60% when camouflaged.

You’ll lose camouflage if detected or when you attack.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 - Void Guard

Forms a life shield that can take damage up to 5 x Intelligence x Endurance HP for three minutes. As long as the shield exists, the player's HP recovery speed increases by 350% and Movement Speed increases by 200%.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Void Hawk Form

Transform yourself into a void hawk, gaining combat ability while flying, with the same tier, level +20 (up to maximum 200), life rating +tier. Rest of the attributes would be scaled to the life rating of the hawk. You will be able to use all your learnt skills in addition to abilities of the hawk

Duration: 10 minutes

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 4 – Nether Crow Form

Split yourself into multiple nether crows for scouting or escape. Scout crows are invisible and ethereal, containing no soul, mana or life force signature and immune to damage. You cannot enter scout crow form during combat. In escape mode, create your own flight dimension, defying movement and flight restrictions, +500% movement speed and +350% defence. You will survive as long as even 1 of the crows manages to escape the combat. Crows have no attack capability. Number of crows spawned = level/4 rounded to nearest number.

Duration: 5 minutes

Cooldown: 2 hours

Origins of this cloak are ambiguous. The dragon slayer Killmaw retrieved it after slaying the void dragon Gurang. The cloak was badly damaged when Killmaw was ambushed by the guardians of the dragon’s treasure, but it still enabled him to escape with his life. The cloak was restored to its pristine state by Thoughtful Rain using 10,000 darkness crystals.

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	19. Asara’s Secrets

Rain was intrigued by the machine that purred and pulsated while running its course. She wanted to disable the machine without destroying it, and bring it over to Zero Wing City for analysis. She set out to experiment with it. There were no warning signs when the darkness crystal supply was reduced by half. Step by step she reduced the supply further and finally made a breakthrough. The machine waited for a fixed number of crystals before processing them. Encouraged by the response, Rain sealed the container exit to stop the crystals from being loaded to the machine. She waited for 30 minutes for something to happen, but the machine patiently waited for crystals to arrive. Satisfied with the results, she regulated the flow of crystals out of the container to prevent the dryads from noticing any problems with the setup. She subverted the machine and moved on to explore further.

The trail ended in a small room that felt like a study. There was a seating area, a bookcase and a chest of drawers that was locked. She scanned the bookcase for interesting reads. One of the books contained the history of various covens and their legacies. The apex legacy listed in the book was that of a divine witch, the only legacy that had affinity to four supreme elements. The next four pages of the book were torn out. After briefly examining the books, she used the 'queen’s authority' to open the drawer. Rain was disappointed to find that the drawer was empty and promptly closed it. A portal rose up behind her the moment the lock activated. Rain consulted the void atlas and found herself below the circle tower. She cast invisibility and stepped into the portal.

Rain was awestruck by the exquisite carvings, paintings and the luxurious appearance of the room. These definitely were the queen’s personal chambers. It took her a few minutes to explore the chamber and some of the surrounding rooms before noticing the presence of a hidden room in the atlas. She was surprised when she couldn't 'blink' inside. She bit her lips and teleported right into it. The room was a goldmine littered with traps. Thanks to the eye, she was able to view and avoid the traps. The first safe was stuffed with gold coins, Rain netted a total of 250,000 gold from the safe. She pocketed 500 tier 3 attributed gemstones from the next safe.

The third safe was rather grim. It contained essence stones from various witches the queen had drained and some affinity crystals. Rain felt chills down her spine while going through the ledger containing details of the witches who were drained and their affinity composition. Ticks indicated drain status, crosses indicated absorption status, strikes denoted witches that managed to get away or escape, and rest were blanks. Rain didn’t know most of these witches but what she found most interesting was that both Warden and Tokie were missing from the ledger, while Eleanor and Kijlstra were in the blank section. It was obvious why Adriana’s name was struck through. Did the queen plan on draining and absorbing Kijlstra after she completed her mission? Was Tokie offered a deal? Things got murkier when Rain tabulated the statistics of witches that had been absorbed. There was enough essence to boost at least 3 queens to their max capacity, or 1 queen and 8 other witches. Were Kijlstra’s soul fragment, Warden and Tokie the benefactors or was there another fragment of the queen’s soul hanging around? Why didn’t the queen stop draining other witches when her quota was full? Too many questions and too few answers.

The queen was stocking void affinity crystals. It was obvious that she was looking for ways to unlock void affinity and max it out. There were a few other basic affinity crystals and some stones for illusion, time and space elements. Rain started absorbing the basic affinity crystals.

System: You have gained 12% affinity with death mana. Total affinity is now 37%

. . . .

System: You have gained 8% affinity with life mana. Total affinity is now 35%

By the time she was done she had maxed out light and electric mana and reached 85% of magnetism, 65% of death and 35% of life. She ignored the darkness affinity crystals for the moment. She could not absorb the crystals for blight and ruin elements. She had void affinity crystals worth 218% which was enough to gain 100% affinity with 50% tax. She had 105% time affinity crystals and 156% space affinity crystals. One of them would be taxed 50% depending on her secondary alignment.

The last cabinet was heavily warded and felt like a booby trap. She was immediately attracted to it when she entered the room, but the hidden traps surrounding it made her quickly drop the idea. She took the bait and decided to activate all the traps in the room. She started summoning while waiting for the teleportation cooldown to be over.

“Summon Spirit Guardian”

“Air Spirit Caller”

“Summon Earth Elemental”

“Elemental Chain Link”

Rain summoned 1 Spirit Guardian, 5 Air Elementals, and 5 Earth Elementals and linked them through a binding spell boosting their defences. She instructed the summoned warriors to hack through every trap in the room, starting from the cabinet and teleported out. One by one the traps activated, setting off explosions of various kinds and filled the room with debilitating poison. The 5 earth elementals who barged into the cabinet were obliterated by the 4th charge. The spirit guardian barely managed to survive the fifth and final charge of the trap. Air elementals fared much better due to their immunity from most attacks, however they disappeared after 2 minutes were up. She summoned inner self and teleported back to the room, only to find the Spirit Guardian crippled by the poison. The cabinet was already open and Rain found more traps lined up inside it. She took out the ornate treasure chest from the cabinet, carefully avoiding the traps. She made the Spirit Guardian open the chest and was surprised at the lack of traps in it. A dazzling golden light filled out the room as the chest opened to reveal its contents.

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Song of Caprice [Legendary Rank, Two-Handed Legacy Staff/Instrument]

A witch who could sing, never needed to chant. This staff contains a forbidden legacy long lost over time: “Infinity Witch”. This legacy has power to charm through sight, sound and smell. Even the Gods fear the holder of this legacy, due to its power to bend other’s wills to their tunes. Anyone who inherits this legacy would be decreed an enemy of the Gods and forbidden from their lands. During the Great War, a lot of envoys walked the realms looking for clues to this legacy. Why fight when you could bend the Gods to your will and make them do your bidding.

Class Restriction: Any witch who has mastered 4 supreme elements, with Time as a primary or secondary element. Eternity witches are most likely to succeed their class change due to primary alignment with the Time element. Antiquity (Illusion), Demonic (Void) and Celestial (Space) witches will face an increased difficulty in their trials. Divinity (Divine) witches must face God mode trial due to the curse of Gods.

Tier Restriction: Tier 5 or higher. Can be used to initiate a class change trial for tier 5 or 6.

This staff was crafted by Caprice, a young witch who made a living as a street performer in Utopia, the city of enlightened beings who devoted their life to arts, crafting and alchemy, in the realm of silence. Her city was invaded by the Beast God Kong, whose minions wreaked havoc in the defenceless city and slaughtered its population without mercy. Caprice tried to escape from the marauding armies but was captured and rounded up for execution. She decided to make a stand and sang a song that charmed everybody including Kong. She commanded him to order his minions to execute themselves, before taking his own life. The last command sapped her entire life force, killing her on the spot. Those who survived due to her sacrifice decided to honour her by renaming the city Capricopia and elevated her to the status of a God by building an altar at the spot of her death. Rest of the Gods were appalled by the decision of the populace and cursed Caprice’s soul to eternal damnation.

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Rain finally understood the queen’s plans. Kijlstra was tasked to explore ways for witches to unlock the 4th supreme element by collecting legacy items for the legacies mentioned in the pages that were torn out of the book. The queen created a soul fragment and chose Time as the primary element. She left out the secondary alignment to allow her to class change into any of the 4 legacies. The queen’s ultimate goal was to upgrade her class to “Infinity witch” and become more powerful than the ancient Gods. This also explained why she dropped a time affinity stone upon death, instead of space affinity which was her primary elemental alignment. She took out the next item to examine.

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Ring of Undying Soul [Legendary Rank, Legacy Ring]

Tier Restriction: Tier 5 or higher

Class Restriction: Witch with 100% affinity to Illusion as primary element.

Equipment Requirement: Intelligence 6000, Agility 6000, Strength 4000, Endurance 4000

When equipped:

All attributes (except Luck): +2600; HP: +15,000,000; MP: +5,000,000

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Soul Proof

Soul attacks below the user tier have no effect. Damage from same or higher tier attacks reduced by 30%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Soulless Existence

Hides your soul signature from all prying eyes.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Soul Aura

Strengthens your soul by 10%. All friendly units in 80 yards have soul strength boosted by 5%. Damage to target souls +10%.

Additional Passive Skill 4 – Soul Mark Devour

Any tracking soul marks placed on you will be devoured over 30 minutes and used to strengthen your soul. Can only devour a single tag per 30 minutes.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Resurrection Stone

Bind your soul to an inanimate rock to serve as a resurrection stone. If you die within 2 hours of setting up the resurrection stone you will be resurrected at that location once, without any penalty. Your death penalty will be doubled and soul state weakened by 20% for 7 days if the stone is destroyed before your death. The stone must be in a publicly accessible area and cannot be moved.

Duration: 2 hours

Cooldown: 12 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Death by Sacrifice

Launch a guaranteed critical strike, on a single target, that cannot be dodged with 3000% of your maximum attack power. If the target (same tier or higher), dies as a result of the strike you’ll be rewarded with an illusion affinity crystal worth (target tier – your tier + 2)% affinity.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 3 – Soul Shield

Grant all friendly units in 100 yards area a soul shield with 50 durability for 60 seconds. Soul attacks deplete durability equal to tier of attack. The shield will break when durability hits 0.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Additional Active Skill 4 – Price of Death

If you die within 120 seconds of activating this skill, you’ll be resurrected after 3 seconds with 100% HP and mana and all skills cooldowns (including equipment skills, except this skill) reset. You will suffer a quarter of the regular death penalty and lose gold equal to the value of the equipment you would have dropped upon death. If you do not have the sufficient amount of gold, the pre-set equipment will drop and disappear.

Cooldown: 8 hours

Additional Active Skill 5 – Death Whips

Flood an area of 500x500 yards with death energy and illusory whips. Every whip deals 1000% death damage and 500% darkness damage. Death damage is increased by +50 x death affinity% while darkness damage is increased by +80 x darkness affinity% of the witch.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 hours

Primary Affinity Ability – Soul Marker

Place a soul marker on a target to track them for the next 48 hours. Targets location can be traced with a 50 yards accuracy.

Affinity Ability Skill 1 – Eyesight

View the surroundings through the eyes of the target for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 1 hour

Cooldown: 5 seconds

This ring was crafted by Witch Queen Astralisara for fight against the soul eater legion of the abyss. Even though the ring was successfully crafted, she couldn’t use it due to incorrect affinity alignment. The ring was given to Adriana who infused it with an affinity ability but refused to use it citing the heavy price of a soul contract the queen demanded.

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Rain understood why the jealous witch would frown whenever she asked for assistance. There was no such thing as a favour in a coven. It was always a barter and the witches were real bitches to each other. Kijlstra helped her tier up since she wanted to explore if mixing legacies of different covens produced a legacy that supported 4 supreme elements. Not sensing any affinity towards Void had gotten Kijlstra off her back. Rain’s prudence helped her escape the clutches of an apex predator.

Rain was curious about Adriana. She refused a soul contract with Asara but got into one with Kapoornakh. Was it ignorance as Kijlstra claimed or did she uncover something so sinister that it was safer to seek eternal imprisonment than face Asara and the rest of the coven?


	20. Ripe for Draining?

Rain took her time to empty out the closet. There were quite a few exquisite items but none poked her curiosity like the tattered and dusty tome she just pulled out.

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Book of Summoning (Epic Rank, Book, Bag Item)

This book contains the set of rituals to be performed for summoning other worldly powers into this world. Summons are controlled by contracts that define the nature and duration of the activity. The summoned creature is automatically released from its contract and unsummoned if either the contract is fulfilled or its duration expires.

Class Restriction: Witch

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“Wow! Sin has an expiry date? Then why is he still hanging around?” she muttered to herself as she started studying the book. There was a detailed explanation of how summoning circles had to be prepared, the ingredients required, standard sample contracts, types of races that could be summoned and their remuneration preferences and details of crafting summoning scrolls. The rarity of summoning scrolls in the market was mostly due to the rarity of witches that dabbled in summoning. The virtual non-existence of Tier 5 or 6 summoning scrolls was simply because such powerhouses rarely wished to be contracted by lesser beings.

After learning about Caprice, Rain saw Gods in a new light. They were just assholes who were drunk on power and ego and would stamp anybody below them with impunity. She was sure there was more to why Asara acted the way she did and why Sin still existed on this plane after such a long time. Asara had gone rogue after Augustus’ death. If she was really evil and a greedy power grabber, she would have started draining and absorbing the coven centuries ago. Was she protecting herself from Sin or some other powers who would be keen on extracting her essence? Did the Gods fight with Sin or over Sin?

The 4 supreme element theory to defeat Sin didn’t make sense anymore. It was all a story spawned to prohibit any attacks on Sin and secretly help the queen to become an infinity witch. Asara had definitely summoned Sin to drain his powers. Gods had sealed him instead of killing him. Were they all waiting for Sin to become ripe for draining? Did Asara’s death and appearance of the fully charged book of forbidden rituals indicate that Sin was finally ripe? She remembered the warden’s words regarding ‘other parties’ taking an interest in the war.

Rain was starting to pity the guy she had been made to believe was the reason for the curse and corruption around her. With questions bouncing off her brain she took out the last item from the box.

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Bracers of Witchcraft [Fragmented Legendary Rank, Bracers]

Level 140 - 200

Class Restriction: Witch with at least 2 supreme elements unlocked.

Equipment Requirement: Intelligence 4000, Agility 4500

When equipped:

All attributes (except Luck): +2000

Agility: +level x tier x 5; Intelligence: +level x tier x 4; Vitality: + level x tier x 3

Casting Speed: +level%; Spell Completion Rate +tier%, Spell critical rate +tier x 5%;

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Deft Touch

Concentration cost when casting spells: -40%. Concentration cost when drawing hexes: -30%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Critical Point Blank

All attacks to targets within 25 yards will be critical hits and cannot be dodged

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Layered Defence

Adds an elemental barrier for every element you have mastered (100% affinity). Each barrier adds +500 resistance against the element and adds bonus +10% to your maximum defence

Additional Active Skill 1 – Erase Past

Remove the last 5 seconds of damage. Any buffs gained in the last 5 seconds are also removed.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Punching Bag

Lock a single target as the recipient of all your attacks for the next 5 seconds. Retaliatory attacks from the target during this duration will do -1 HP damage.

Cooldown: 45 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Sucker Punch

Execute a single 2000% power attack on a single target from a blind spot

Cooldown: 5 minutes

The bracers were presented by the Fallen witch Chezumra as a peace offering to Queen Asara, when the coven organised a crusade against her. Asara agreed to the peace offering, giving her 1 day notice to vacate her territory and move to a neutral area. The decision proved to be a wise one as Chezumra single-handedly ambushed and killed an army of 10,000 demons from the abyss, forcing the demon general to rethink his plan of attack.

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Rain equipped the bracers and felt her powers grow. She took another look at the cabinet and ordered the Spirit Guardian to trigger the traps inside. The guardian activated 2 traps at once, losing the last strands of its HP. Rain switched the staff to summon “Frost Guardian” and fed him to the traps as well. ‘Layered Defence’ from the bracers and had proved its mettle as she suffered minimal injuries from the explosions.

She discovered a secret chamber containing another smaller chest. This one had a self-destruct counter active, prompting the Frost guardian to immediately freeze the mechanism and open the chest. Rain was suppressed by the divine might the contents of the chest gave off. She did her best to pocket the few tomes inside and swapped places with her doppelganger. To her dismay, all the tomes were encrypted like the book of forbidden magic.

Rain pondered over claiming the infinity witch legacy for herself. She designated Time as her Secondary alignment and gained 100% affinity. She received the 5% balance back in the form of an affinity crystal. She switched her legacy benefit to Time element to gain more crystals as she levelled up. Her cloth armour started evolving as well.

She started absorbing the Space element using the 156% affinity crystals (at 50% tax)

System: You have gained 8% affinity with Space mana. Total affinity is now 78%

She decided against absorbing any of the witch’s essences to boost her affinities further. It felt gross and wrong.

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Skin of Elemental Origins (Lesser Legendary Rank, Affinity Growth Type, Cloth Armour Set)

Consists of a total 3 pieces. Robe, Gloves and Shoes

Equipment Requirements: Strength 4500, Agility 5500, Intelligence 6500

Equipment Restrictions: Can only be equipped by a witch with 100% affinity towards all basic elements in her realm and unlocked at least 1 supreme element. All 3 pieces must be worn together to gain bonuses.

Defence +6000, Intelligence +5000, Agility +4000, Strength +3500, Vitality +3500, Endurance +2000

All hidden attributes: +3000

When equipped

Defence against physical attacks: + 3 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

Defence against elemental attacks (mastered by user): + 8 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

Defence against other magical attacks: + 5 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

All basic attributes: + level x tier x total supreme affinity x 2

All hidden attributes: + level x tier x total supreme affinity

Casting speed +35%

Spell Completion Rate +7%

All healing and buffs received +30%

Movement and attack speed +80%

Stamina and Concentration consumption -28%

All item level requirements reduced by 20 Levels.

Robe Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Hexathon

Area of coverage for all hexes increased by 20 yards. Life force consumption reduced by 30%. Cooldown reduced by 50%. Stackable hexes gain additional 25% power.

Reduces damage received from hexes by 40%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Life Support

When below 12% HP, HP loss reduced by 50%. All healing effects under life support +500%

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Positivity Aura

Any negative effects will timeout after 1 second. Allies in a 50 yard circle will have negative effects reduced by 50%. Positive buffs and healing +15%.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Monster’s Best Friend

Gives you a 40% chance to befriend a monster of the same tier and +-Tier Difference x 10% for lower or higher tier. The befriended monster can be used as a mount for 12 hours. While the monster would defend you if you are attacked, there is only a 50% chance that the monster would aid you in a fight.

Gain +10 favourability with the befriended monster, increasing your chance of befriending it again by 10% (max 100%) after 1 natural day.

Cooldown: 2 hours.

Additional Active Skill 2 – Elemental Shield

Grants you a life shield that absorbs damage worth 8 x Maximum HP, increases casting speed by 20% and movement speed by 150%.

Shield is capable of recovering damage at twice the caster’s regeneration rate. All healing effects restore shield by 200% of healing received.

Duration: 180 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 3 – Spatial Barrier

Disable basic teleportation in 1000 yards around the caster. All teleportation scrolls/skills below tier 4 will be disabled.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 4 – Absolute Defence Shield

Makes you invulnerable for 10 seconds. Same tier or below attacks are ignored. Higher tier attacks drain the durability of the shield by tier difference per attack. The shield crumbles if 100 points of durability are lost within the active duration.

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Gloves Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Safer Collaterals

Damage to all friendly units will be reduced by 88%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Precision Strike

Grants a 42% chance that an attack would alter its trajectory to strike from a blind spot.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Elemental Prison

Imprison one target, up to 1 tier higher, in an elemental prison for 50 seconds. Target can be attacked using legacy spells without affecting the prison. Target must break out of prison before attacking others. Each attack will reflect 25% damage back to the attacker.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 2 – Switch Target

Divert an attack from its intended target to another target at 100% damage. Rebounding the attack on caster reduces the damage to 50%

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Handy Mode

Allows you to wield a second two-handed staff for 120 seconds. You receive 50% bonuses and all skills from the staff

Cooldown: 1 hour

Shoes Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Soundless Motion

Witch’s movements on any type of surface, even at maximum speed, do not produce any sound.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Phase Shift

Automatically moves you 10 yards away in a random direction when attacked from stealth. Triggers once every 10 seconds.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Timing and Placement

When activated prior to casting a spell or hex, the witch would be teleported to any predetermined point within 300 yards. After casting is complete the witch will be teleported back to the initial spot.

Cooldown: 45 seconds

Additional Active Skill 2 – Swap Position

Physically swap position with any target in 250 yards.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Glue Trap

Setup up to 5 glue traps in the next 60 seconds. Targets of the same tier or below will be immobilised for 5 seconds. Higher tier targets will have their movement speed reduced by 50% and will be immobilised if they step on Tier Difference + 1 traps.

Duration per trap: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Bound Set Equipment Bonus

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Legacy Discount

All legacy spells will consume 35% lesser mana.

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain

Cannot be traded.

Cannot be dropped.

Conjured out of elements from seven different realms and bound together by seals of seven witch queens, this armour would be awarded to the witch who had conquered all basic elements and unlocked at least 1 supreme element from their realm.

This armour evolves by half rank for the next supreme element mastered.

Supreme elements mastered: Currently (2/3) [Illusion, Time].

Total supreme affinity (Illusion, Time, Space): 278%

Equipment rank: Lesser Legendary 50%

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She took some time to familiarise herself with the latest power boost and skills from the armour. She visited the observation deck near the staircase and soaked in the magnificent views. Her reverie was broken by a sudden illumination of the skies above. A massive portal opened in the sky, alerting every dryad in the area. There were a few nervous moments of chaos before order was restored by a monstrous dryad who walked out of the tower’s basement. All troops took positions and waited for the enemy to arrive.

“Did Sin decide to attack this place and retrieve his mystical device?” Rain pondered over the possibility while waiting for the enemy to reveal itself.


	21. Dryad Mother

The dryads swiftly prepared for the upcoming battle, reinforcing their positions and buffing their peers. Rain felt ‘God Mode’ activate and used the opportunity to equip “Ring of Undying Soul” and “Ring of Power”.

An army of winged creatures emerged from the portal after it stabilised. Their dramatic entrance was thwarted by the severe flight restriction in the area that caused most of the army to tumble down from the sky. They crash landed around 1000 yards away from the dryads who were raucously laughing at the spectacle. Three God ranked generals and over 10,000 tier 5 creatures were the only ones who maintained their flying formation while helping their 50,000 tier 4 soldiers land safely. Another God ranked person walked through the portal and closed it behind her. She joined the others to evaluate the situation below.

“Greetings to thee, the Honourable Knights of Light and Venerable Sister Chezumra. Welcome to Andal” the dryad mother spoke in a mocking tone. The armies represented the Xnights of Light, the equivalent of fallen in the realm of light. The Lord of Light had personally stripped these generals and their armies of their titles, ostracised and banished them from his lands for their refusal to execute their commander, the Crown Prince! If Asara were alive she would be questioning her judgement in sparing Chezumra.

“Greetings Dryad Mother. It’s kind of sad to see a Great God become Asara’s pet. Do not worry though we are here to put you out of your misery” Chezumra responded in an equally mocking tone.

“Oh don’t be so impolite sister Chezumra, we are only here for Asara. We have no reason to cross paths with the Great Dryad Mother and her followers” a powerful Xnight General chided Chezumra before addressing the dryad, “Esteemed Dryad Mother, I Doromithor, the Prime Minister of the Prince of Light have no quarrel with you or your kind. Would you point me to the location of Queen Asara so that we can conduct our business with her?” Doromithor took a diplomatic approach, presenting himself as a saviour of the dryads instead of an enemy.

“By business you mean to kill her, extract her essence and lifeblood, and covet her book of forbidden magic?” the dryad mother asked with a smirk.

“Well you are definitely very well informed. If you aid us I assure you of a fair compensation” PM said.

“I am afraid, none of what you seek can be found here. These broken chains are proof of Asara’s death. Whoever killed her should have what you need. By the way, don’t you know that only a queen can use the book of forbidden magic? Isn’t it useless to you?” dryad mother stated. Chezumra was stunned at the dryad’s revelation. It was an irrefutable proof of Asara’s death yet the mole she planted had reported that no lifeblood or item had dropped upon her death.

“Our sister here should be able to use the book. The essence is merely the reward she seeks for helping us out” the PM explained, causing dryad mother to erupt in maniacal laughter.

“Are you really so stupid to buy that crap load of lies? These chains were what I got for trusting a fallen witch.” The dryad mother mocked the PM, enraging the fallen witch.

“Oh cut the act! Asara’s death was faked. Nothing dropped when she died and the book was secretly sent here by her servants. My trace confirms that it’s inside this tower. She could have freed you on her own accord to buy you out” Chezumra bellowed. Rain was stunned by this reveal. Her intuition about a mole was correct and if the claim of the trace was correct then Chezumra had to die, her presence was too risky.

“Tall claims with little to show for them you pitiful witch. Could you clarify to our friend Doromithor if the essence is a reward or a prerequisite for using the book? You can’t become a queen without absorbing a queen’s essence and we all know what happens when a new queen is born” the dryad mother laughed off the witch’s provocation, calling out her lies. Chezumra was at a loss for words. Her unease was obvious for everybody to deduce that she was caught pants down. She hadn’t expected a dryad to know so much about customs of witches.

“She planned to use you guys as a meat shield to aid her rebirth as a queen. With the paltry force you have gathered you stood no chance” dryad mother explained, stunning Rain further. If this massive force was “paltry” it only meant that Ancient Gods or other queens or some really powerful dark forces would step in to prevent a witch queen from being born.

Rain’s experience when battling the queen was tantamount to digging the ground with a needle. Even apex tier 6 critical attacks felt like flesh wounds to a queen. She could have killed both Gurjaden and Kapoornakh twice over, in half the time it took to defeat a soul fragment of the queen that was suppressed to Tier 4! It was no wonder that witch queens had to suck up to ancient gods to seek their protection. Asara knew her life was over when she lost the protection of Augustus. She was sure that she would be hunted by powerful forces once the Great War was over. The dryad mother was one such threat to her life.

“Oh zip your snicker mouth. Next time we meet will be your last” Chezumra bellowed while attempting to teleport away.

“What do you mean by next time?” Doromithor bound her with 'Chains of Light', preventing her escape. Both armies found a single target to warm up. Tens of thousands of spells and arrows flew towards her. Even though Chezumra managed to break through and blink away in the nick of time, she wasn’t able to avoid some rather deadly spells including the Dryad Mother’s “Life Drain” and a couple of light sanctions. One such spell was a “Soul Marker” from Rain, who had immediately set off in her direction. By the time she caught up with her the witch’s HP was hovering around 25% and draining fast. Chezumra had masked her life, mana and soul signature but still couldn’t shake off Rain’s pursuit. She was unable to cast any spells for the fear of exposing her location to her pursuers who were cautiously tailing after her. She found a place to hide and started casting teleport, her attempt was rudely interrupted by a “Sucker Punch” that had pinned her against a stone slab and reduced her HP to 5%. Rain further casted “Punching Bag” and unleashed a flurry of critical hits with “Critical Point Blank”.

Sensing the witch’s HP was almost at 1% mark, Rain finally revealed herself and said “Remember these bracers?” before ending her life with “Death by Sacrifice” netting a 3% illusion affinity crystal. She quickly picked up the drops and waited for the soul to be absorbed by the eye before teleporting back to the queen’s chamber in the circle tower. The finishing blow had earned her another Tier 6 soul, enough EXP to level up to 10% of level 130 and another 2% time affinity crystal. She examined the loot while waiting for the news of the witch’s death to arrive. The first item stunned her.

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Lifeblood of the Fallen Champion [Legendary Ranked Material, Consumable]

Increases the witch’s maximum affinity cap by 100% for primary and secondary aligned elements.

Gain 50% affinity for ruin and void elements.

Gain 25% affinity for darkness, blight and light elements.

Class Restriction: Witch

A witch that acquires a champion status without a God’s trial, would be forbidden from taking a God’s trial in future and lifeblood containing her core affinity would drop upon death.

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Soul Crystal of Krystal Tungu [Epic Ranked Material, Generic Item]

This item can be used to track any item or person that carries its soul signature. Destroy this item to remove all signatures and the soul residue.

Additional Skill 1 – Track Signature

Allows user to locate items that carry the target’s soul signature within 50 yards. A generic location e.g. a city or landmark is returned if the item is not within range.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Skill 2 – Issue Command

After resurrection you can instruct the person to follow a command once every 48 hours. If the target does not follow the command their soul will be shattered. Ambiguity or different interpretation of the command will not affect the target.

Cooldown: 48 hours

Contains a fragment of the soul of Krystal Tungu, Warden of the Coven of Augustus. The fragment was created by fallen witch Chezumra through a forbidden residual soul technique that brings a dead person to life within 24 hours, if their soul gets shattered. The soul residue and the crystal will be destroyed if the person died due to any other causes. Destroying the crystal after a person is resurrected will either revoke the contract or shatter their soul depending on their luck.

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Ruin Dragon’s Spine [Lesser Divine Ranked Material, Legacy Item, Belt]

Legend has it that an ancient and powerful legacy resides within these bones. The legacy would only reveal itself to the one it deems worthy. This spine has seen many powerful owners over the ages, yet none caught the attention of this legacy.

Can be used as a belt to provide 5% divine resistance.

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“Divine Resistance!” Rain jumped with joy. The only thing that made divine damage extraordinary was the fact that all forms of resistances and defences (excluding armour) were useless against it. The 25% ruin affinity stone that had dropped as well was useless for Rain. She was tempted to play with the soul crystal, however she put it on hold upon noticing the situation outside.

“That witch is dead. Thank you for saving us from that backstabbing traitor” Doromithor bowed.

“When you have fought enough wars, you learn how to deal with situations that aren’t to your advantage. We dryads are creatures of earth, light and life. That witch would have dealt us much more damage than you guys ever could. So don’t thank me for saving the best for the last” Dryad Mother smirked before unleashing a powerful origin spell on Doromithor, draining his HP to the last 1% and trapping him with earth vines. Before the other generals could react to the sudden development, she turned to him to negotiate.

“We both know you came here for Sin. To be clear, his power belonged to me a thousand years ago and it still does. So I can offer you a deal. Send your trusted generals to ‘Origin of Sin’ and kill the witch named Tokie. Once the last seal is shattered I’ll allow the rest of your army to leave with their heads intact. Defy me and all your souls will be trapped in these lands forever” the dryad mother declared.

“Take your deal and free you of your bonds? I refuse to unleash a power hungry maniac like yourself” Doromithor spoke with contempt and unleashed a powerful spell on the Dryad Mother. A tier 5 lieutenant stepped forward to block the spell but was instantly annihilated. Rather than reacting to the provocation, the dryads burst out in a laughter that reverberated through the depths of the valley, stumping the entire army of Xnights.

A shimmering dark fluctuation appeared on the sinner’s circle a minute later. A dryad walked out of the darkness with a smirk on its face and took her position as the bodyguard of the dryad mother. Doromithor knew it was the same dryad he had killed a while ago and the realization sent shivers down his spine.

Was this the power of Sin?


	22. Ancient God’s Executioner

That display was too awesome to ignore. The dryad was reborn without any penalty. Her level and equipment were intact. The Xnights despaired at the futility of their endeavour. This battle had no meaning if the enemy could revive infinitely. If the Dryad Mother’s words were to be believed, there was a chance that their own dead would rise against them.

Rain too was amazed by the event but had a much clearer understanding of what transpired. The soul signature of this dryad was slightly different than those around it. It was missing one stripe on the back of its neck. Most dryads had 12 or 13 stripes while dryad mother had 8. Rain immediately connected the dots. The dryads would gain a stripe for every 100 years of absorbing the mystical energy, a lifeline of sorts that would resurrect it on the sinner’s circle. Furthermore sealing of souls was merely a bluff since only those who entered a contract with Sin could avail this facility. Dryad Mother was wary of Chezumra since her ruin and soul magic would have had catastrophic effects on their seamless revival mode.

“What do you say now Xnight? Deal or Death?” Dryad Mother asked, glaring at the PM.

“Tell me dryad. Did you and your cowardly crew of Gods abandon your post in the war, to seek out Sin?” Doromithor asked, mocking the Dryad Mother and successfully pushing her out of her comfort zone.

“That war was lost even before it began. I would have returned much earlier if not for the empty promises of the Ancients. Only a fool would have given away their life for a losing cause” the dryad bellowed.

“And only a coward makes excuses for running away like that. Is Sin really worth eternal damnation?” Doromithor said with a mocking smirk on his face.

“I will have the last laugh when I absorb Sin’s power and become an Ancient myself. I returned to payback Asara for all her insults, but that witch was too smart to become a sitting duck. Too bad for her that I returned before her plans bore fruits. She’s lucky to have died before I claimed Sin for myself. Enough chatter. Time to decide your fate” Dryad Mother scoffed at being called a coward.

“You two. Take half of the army and leave for 'Origin of Sin' immediately” Doromithor commanded his lieutenants, to the delight of the dryads who promptly opened a portal.

“You made the right decision” Dryad Mother proudly declared, watching half of the Xnights army split and enter the portal.

When the lieutenants turned around to say goodbye, Doromithor promptly conveyed his commands. “Protect this witch Tokie at all costs. Don’t let my sacrifice go to waste”. Those words and the smiling face made Dryad Mother flare with rage. While she was contemplating on an apt punishment for this indignance and treachery, a powerful, mysterious cloaked figure appeared at the centre of the dryad army.

“Dryad Mother! It’s time to account for the sins you have committed. For your treachery and cowardice, I am here to execute you on behalf of the Ancients. Prepare to accept your punishment” the mysterious cloaked person decreed in a slow but loud voice giving ample weight to specific words, as if reading out a divine edict. The weird part was that she said all that while haphazardly moving around in a circle. This was none other than Rain’s doppelganger who had already cast “Elemental Awakening” and was preparing a soul drain hex on the ground using “Hexotic Trap”. This time she managed to boost the legacy footwork to Advanced Silver level.

Rain knew she had to act after learning Dryad Mother’s intentions. She was contemplating between saving Tokie and killing the dryad. Doromithor’s last command eliminated the need for a decision. It was a pathetic strategy to challenge the Dryad Mother while being surrounded by her army, but Rain had already used “Divine Vision” to peek into the next 5 seconds and devised a plan of attack.

“Asara? How are you still alive?” The Dryad Mother shivered in fear but was quick to dismiss the idea. “You are just a phoney. Everyone. Teach this gnat the meaning of despair” she commanded her troops who were already in the midst of casting their most powerful spells. Rain didn’t bother to respond and took a fighting stance. She knew that the dryad’s fate was already sealed. She activated the trap and swapped position with Dryad Mother moments before the 10 thousand spells hit her.

The trap triggered, instantly draining 45% of Dryad Mother's soul and weakening her to the extent that she couldn’t dodge any of the spells. The doppelganger couldn't manage to escape without taking a few hits either. She knew that her proximity with a few hundred dryads would allow some spells to hit her while she waited for the perfect moment to swap places. She prepared for it by casting “Elemental Blessing” prior to engaging the dryads. A huge dust cloud arose at the Dryad Mother’s new location. Rain's doppelganger cast invisibility and sneaked a short distance away before the stunned dryads could react and started using “Hexotic Trap” again to cast “Experience Steal”. There was no way she would let a level 220 dryad escape without milking her.

“Support units heal the mother at once. Scourge units follow me to eliminate this phoney at once” dryad’s lieutenant took over the command upon noticing their leader in distress. The few moments of indecision had given Rain enough time to switch places with the doppelganger and complete the hex trap. The doppelganger started drawing “Bewitched” to immobilise Dryad Mother at a moment’s notice. Thick spells flew in two different directions. Rain activated the trap and swapped places with the Dryad Mother once again, restoring her HP to 100% when the heals landed.

Dryad Mother lost almost 1 trillion of her 6.5 trillion EXP, reducing her to level 213. Rain gained almost 100 billion EXP raising her level to 135. Dryad Mother had already lost 30% HP when hit by the first round of spells. Due to the continuous nature of life drain, she was still losing HP when the next wave of attacks brought her below 50%, and totally disoriented her. She was “Bewitched” one second later, sealing her fate for the next 30 seconds and releasing Doromithor from his earthen prison. The dryads were too confused to respond to the threat after losing track of Rain who cast invisibility and disappeared. They thought that their mysterious attacker fled the scene after the failed assassination attempt. They broke formation and ran to the aid of their leader.

The real carnage began when they huddled together to protect Dryad Mother from the Xnights of Light. In the short time of their absence from the field, both Rain and her doppelganger were dual hexing. Rain hit them with “Pins and Needles” and “Life Drain” while the doppelganger hit them with “Experience Steal” and stacked “Silent Degradation” over “Life Drain'', raising it to tier 6. The immobilised pack of dryads had nowhere to run. All escape routes were sealed shut.

Rain and her doppelganger were channelling “Particulate Corrosion” on the 100x100 yards area surrounding Dryad Mother, raising the power of the hexes by 200%. Doromithor joined the party with a sky shattering light pin attack that drilled almost infinite needles into the hexed area, making the dryads erupt in a fountain of blood, draining their HP as quickly as the “life drain” hex.

More and more spells landed on the hexed zone. The dryads were too powerless to restrict the Xnights who had given up on defence to eliminate the single biggest threat they faced. Dryad Mother’s HP was falling like a rapid every few seconds. She finally fell to a “Baptism by Fire”.

The hexes were still active and dryads were dropping dead one by one. Rain immediately rushed to the spot to absorb their souls. “Safer Collaterals” passive ability ensured that she wasn’t taking much damage from the hexes. After absorbing the dryad mother and another 300 tier 5 dryad souls, she blinked out of the area and back into the queen’s chambers. She had collected 1580 soul fragments and gained a mind boggling 3 trillion EXP pushing her to 78% of level 191.

She left the area not because there weren’t any more souls to harvest or dryads to kill. She left as none of the dryads had dropped any loot and the number of soul fragments didn’t add up. It almost felt like a repeat of first dryad’s death and Rain had a nagging feeling that something sinister was going on that she wasn’t aware of. Her intuition was further validated when the dryads did not revive after 1 minute was over. Her EXP was still growing and only stopped after she reached 15% of level 192.

The dryads hadn’t dwelled on the matter and managed to dent the Xnight army significantly. The dryads that were felled by them revived and re-joined the battle without a care.

After watching the battle play out for another 2 minutes and establishing that Dryad Mother had not been revived, she blinked into the queen’s treasury to think about the missing piece. The explosions had destroyed all traps and wards and destroyed sections of a wall to reveal another room nearby. Rain quickly collected herself and did a “Rapid Cooldown” to reset as many spells as possible and cautiously approached the hidden room.


	23. Accountant Crawly

Rain sensed a presence inside the room, yet the Dark Seer’s eye registered a blank. She wanted to turn turtle and run away immediately. There was no point in getting into pointless conflicts. However, that option was taken away when a voice beckoned her.

“Welcome little one. Are you the one wreaking havoc with my contracts?” a voice addressed Rain, waving at her in a friendly manner and inviting her to enter the room. There was an apparition floating in the air at the centre of the room, fully decked in a black cloak. Noting Rain’s cautious and suspicious approach, it smiled and said “You need not fear me. I have no interest in the matters of this world. I simply account for contracts and monitor them”

“Hello I am Rain. Who might you be? And what contracts are you talking about?” She was curious.

“Ah a curious one! No one asked for my name in a million years. I think I was once known as Crawly. Not many are aware of my existence. Every ritual or summoning involves a barter that is formally agreed upon by the parties through a contract. I simply monitor them” Crawly replied.

“I thought these contracts were cast in stone. How is it possible to mess with them?” Rain asked.

“One life for 100 years. Yet a while back I received hundreds of half eaten souls. Things don’t add up. Barter failed. Contract violated” Crawly spoke like a mechanical robot.

“Didn’t the contract mention what happens in a scenario the soul is incomplete?” Rain asked.

“I don’t read contracts. I only monitor them. Wait! Another contract is being written right now. It seems the half eaten souls are asking for compensation. It’s a fair ask if you ask me since they held their terms of the barter” Crawly stated with excitement, sending shivers down Rain’s spine.

“Who are they asking for compensation from?” she wondered if Sin was involved.

“Whoever gives them what they ask for. It’s an open contract” Crawly answered.

“I may be interested. What do they want and what do they offer in return?” Rain asked fishing for information.

“Hahaha. You are really smarter than I thought. Willing to sign away your life in exchange for half of the balance of their lives" Crawly sensed the stumped look on Rain's face. It was obvious that she had no clue what he was talking about. "Die once to gain 5 lives. I wonder how that would work” Crawly explained in simple words.

“Why are they so adamant on my death?” Rain asked

“Not you particularly. Every witch killed, gains 5 lives for the killer. If they kill the shady executioner who ended their life they get the balance of all the unclaimed lives. Hahaha. This is so funny, I never realised the price of your life is 1500 lives. I would have killed myself to sign such a deal if it were offered to me” Crawly connected the dots and found the situation grim and funny at the same time. He smiled awkwardly at Rain and asked further “Why would someone mistake you for a worldly God and an executioner working for the Ancients. Did you really kill a Great God within 20 seconds?”

“Am I that good? That’s awesome isn’t it?” Rain smiled back. “What does that even mean though? 1500 lives? Can it be bartered for something else?”

“I have no idea. Frankly I have never seen an open contract fetch so many contractors. Congratulations on starting a booming witch hunting industry. Some Gods might even spawn a legacy to commemorate such a catchy contract” Crawly smirked at Rain for bringing doom upon all witches.

“What does killing entail?” Rain asked.

“Standard stuff I guess, sever the soul from the body stuff” Crawly snickered away at Rain.

“Can I see a copy of the contract? I want to sign up too. I got some witches to kill and a hell lot of dryads” Rain demanded. Her view of contracts in God’s Domain had just been rephrased! The content meant nothing. Only the barter mattered. How you write the clauses that define the completion criteria determined how the system would process them. You could list 10 different items to be exchanged in the details but if your completion criteria only defined 10 items to be delivered, then 10 units of the same item would fulfil the contract. Such leeway often opened the contract up and open for interpretation.

“Here” Crawly said, beaming a copy straight into Rain’s head. “You better hurry as the body count is starting to pile up” he warned her, looking disgusted at the sheer amount of work this contract created for him. Rain studied the contract for a while and realised that a simple resurrection scroll would bypass the terms and conditions of the contract. Contractor had to kill a witch to qualify for rewards, with no regards to what happens later.

“Where do I sign?” she asked Crawly with a smile.

“Oh you just have to accept it like any typical contract. Fulfil it and claim your reward” he replied calmly.

“Ok I’ll be right back” Rain said before teleporting to the spot where she killed Chezumra. She double checked her vicinity and found it abandoned as expected. She moved to the interior of the spiral labyrinth and got down to business.

She spent 2,647,466,015,850 EXP to upgrade “Ring of Broken Promises” to legendary rank, reducing herself to 68% of Level 148.

She used “Void Caller” to boost herself to Tier 5 for the next 60 seconds, pushing herself to level 168. She quickly equipped “Ring of Undying Soul” and “Ring of Power” and used “Resurrection Stone” to set the huge monolith at the centre of the spire as a resurrection point. She unequipped her armour, bracers, god slayer title and other trinkets to reduce her HP as much as possible. She then dual hexed “life drain” and “silent degradation” and stacked them to raise it to Tier 6. She finally cast “Power Drain” on herself bringing herself back to Tier 4, level 148. The rings automatically unequipped as she rapidly drained her HP. She was amazed how quick and painless a hex felt. Her HP raced to 0 in the next 18 seconds. She dropped to the ground dead as a doorknob.

She emerged out of the resurrection stone 30 seconds later. She was totally unharmed. She was a bit dazed by the whole experience but it was all worth it. She quickly equipped all her stuff to return to her best fighting form. Surprisingly both “Void Caller” and “Power Drain” were still in effect. It felt like a dream 15 seconds later as things were back to normal.

System: You have successfully completed the contract “Slay the Executioner”. You are rewarded with 1400 lives. Do you wish to announce your achievement?

“What? 20 witches killed in such a small time” Rain thought to herself before choosing ‘No’ to the announcement.

System: God of Thunder has acknowledged your achievements and granted you an epic ranked passive title “Undying” and a God stone. You’ll earn 1 free life every 10 levels.

System: Goddess of Life has acknowledged your sacrifice to save your kin and granted you an epic ranked passive title of “Life Bearer”, and 25% affinity towards life mana. HP regeneration rate +200%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with life mana. Total affinity is now 60%

System: Your sacrifice has cleansed the Pillar of Augustus and paved the way for his resurrection. You will carry the burden of the curse henceforth. Death penalty x2. All attributes will be permanently reduced by 25 points per death. Level -1. Lose 1 level every 5 x tier days.

System: God of Barbarians Augustus’s spirit has acknowledged your sacrifice and granted you a legendary ranked passive title “God’s Own”. Your primary and secondary element affinity cap has been raised by 100%.

System: Your total affinity for Illusion has been raised to 200%.

System: Your total affinity for Time has been raised to 200%.

“Huh. What was that?” Rain was flabbergasted at the polar opposites. She hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings after killing the witch since she didn’t want to linger around and risk detection by the hunters. The geometrical alignment of the rocks proved that this place wasn’t a natural construct but a site of rituals. A closer look revealed some startling resemblances between this area and the spiral ceiling of the ‘psychedelic casket’. Her deduction was validated by another system announcement.

System: You have activated the ‘Psychedelic Casket’. You have already completed this trial for your tier group. You can challenge the next trial after attaining Tier 5.

“So Eleanor sent me here earlier” Rain mumbled before absorbing the rest of the affinity crystals.

System: You have gained 2% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 102

. . . .

System: You have gained 12% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 152

System: You have gained 8% affinity with time mana. Total affinity is now 108

. . . .

System: You have gained 22% affinity with time mana. Total affinity is now 144

Dozens of twinkling lights from the site of the battle caught her attention. The Xnights were still engaged in a war with the dryads and Doromithor’s side was in a bad shape due to the seemingly endless tides of dryads. This however felt different. It was more like spatial channels opening above the warzone.

“It’s feeding time” Rain exclaimed, caressing the Dark Seer’s Eye. It was time to absorb more souls!


	24. Life Annihilation

Rain examined the upgraded ring on the way to the warzone.

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Ring of Broken Promises (Legendary Rank, Ring)

Level 140-200

Equipment Requirement: Strength 4000, Agility 4000, Intelligence 4000, Endurance 4000, Vitality 4000

Equipment Restriction: Witch. 

All basic elemental resistances: +500 +level

All supreme elemental resistances: +300 +level

All basic attributes: +4000

All attributes (basic + hidden): +level x tier x 5

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Shadow of Corruption

Any hex involving offense, control and summoning will degrade equipment durability by 25 points for every second inside the hex area. The damage will double for darkness type creatures and triple for undead.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Slippery Slope

Enemies attacking from within 5 yards have a 42% chance to slip and fall before landing their attack. Those who slip have 80% chance of receiving damage from their own skill and 40% change to enter a fainted state for 5 seconds

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Lady Luck

Gives you a 40% chance that all damage by the next hex or spell would be critical damage. Only triggers once every hour.

Additional Passive Skill 4 – Reaper’s Share

Receive 10% EXP from any death within 500 yards even if you didn’t contribute to the kill. Receive 15% bonus EXP if you contributed or 20% bonus if you landed the killing blow. Solo kills of higher tiered targets grants 200% EXP.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Total Obliteration

Sap an area of 1000 yards circle of all life and energy by unleashing the power of ruination. Every second inside the affected area saps 5% stamina and concentration. Dual blades of darkness and light and spears of lightning ravage the area doing 1500% elemental damage per second. A magnetic vortex at the centre sucks everyone towards it, increasing gravity by 0.25g per 50 yards from the periphery, preventing escape, while making dodges and blocks difficult.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Additional Active Skill 2 – Levitation Slam

Lift targets within 50 yards up in the air by 30 yards and slam them down to the ground using five times the gravity causing blunt force damage and stunning them for 10 seconds. Targets will be disillusioned for the next 10 seconds causing their movement speed, reaction time and attack speed to drop by 50%. 

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Elemental Inversion

Convert darkness to light, fire to water, air to earth, etc., convert the primary element in the environment into its opposite element, in an area of 1000 x 1000 yards.

Alternatively, you can choose to invert a specific element in the environment in a 850x850 yards area.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 4 – Two Million Pricks

Unleash a million needles of light and another million needles of darkness on an area of your choice (not exceeding 1000 x 1000 yards). Each needle carries 250% non-critical elemental damage. Each needle will further sap the target's stamina (darkness needles) or concentration (light needles) to charge themselves for the next 5 seconds. Fully charged needles explode delivering 500% physical damage around a 5 yard area.

Cooldown: 24 hours

Additional Active Skill 5 – Reaper’s Scythe

Summon a power scythe to clear 500 yards around you in 10 circular sweeps. The first sweep carries 1500% death damage. Damage increases by 150% and movement speed increases by 100% for each subsequent swipes. The swipes cannot be blocked and ignore all defences.

Death damage does not distinguish between friend and foe. Undead targets take double damage.

Cooldown: 6 hours

This artefact was forged by the fallen witch Shastraku by draining the power of elder witches in her coven and twisting them into a ring of elemental essences containing: darkness, light, electricity, magnetism and death. Interestingly, Shastraku had offered no resistance when junior witches of the coven had tracked her down and brought her to justice. She had no more purpose left in life after extracting her revenge for every promise broken by the elders. She even gifted this ring to the witch who landed the killing blow.

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Rain was pleased with the fully upgraded ring. She didn’t really have the chance to use its skills other than when fighting queen Asara. The warzone was the best place to test out its power. Rain steadily made her way back to the warzone and made sure that she was completely hidden from all forms of tracing. “God Mode” activation felt so natural that she didn’t even register the power surging through her body. The scene playing out in front of her was so amusing that she had trouble holding her laughter. The Xnights and the Dryads had ceased their battle at the arrival of 3 new teams of powerful Gods.

“You heathens are not our target. Point us to the location of the executioner and we’ll let you enjoy your petty lives” a heavily cloaked warrior reeking in death energy bellowed, demanding an answer from the dryads below.

“That prize is ours. You rats should go back to whichever hole you crawled out of” a pious looking priest chastised the warrior causing furious roars to erupt from the warrior’s team.

“I’m glad you losers could join us. We Seekers have always been curious about which of you losers suck more at your jobs” a thin and frail looking youth mocked both the teams present. The power his team exuded was proof that they could wipe the floor with every person present in the warzone.

It was obvious that a clash of this magnitude would crush the entirety of Andal into pulp. This realization made both the Xnights and the dryads reconsider their differences. Being witness to the executioner’s exploits meant they had no means of escape without providing a satisfactory answer. While they were struggling to come up with a response a huge disturbance caught everybody’s attention. Powerful strings of dark lightning assaulted the sinner’s circle, charring the ground as a monstrous dryad emerged from its centre. The pressure the dryad gave off struck fear into the hearts of everyone present. Dryad Mother was reborn and appeared to be a lot stronger than before.

“Fools! The executioner is dead and I have been reborn. Much stronger than I have ever been. Thank you for accepting my invitation. Your deaths will give me sufficient power to break through the threshold of becoming an Ancient” dryad mother proudly stated, the thunderous declaration rang warning bells across the warzone.

Rain knew that the dryad had the power to take out everyone present, she however wasn’t sure how things would play out. She used “Divine Vision” to peek 5 seconds into the future and saw Dryad Mother unleash an overpowering origin spell across 1000 yards that would disintegrate anyone below Advanced Tier 6 status, reduce Peak Tier 6 gods to Tier 5, wiping 75% of their HP and Apex Tier 6 gods to Basic Tier 6, wiping 50% of their HP. Only Doromithor from the Xnights and 10 more new entrants would survive the spell that would cripple them to the point of uselessness. Even Dryad Mother herself would suffer the brunt of the attack and lose 50% HP. Every dryad at tier 5 would lose 5 lives while those below tier 5 would lose in excess of 10, ensuring they would never revive again. Rain didn’t have to bother about dying 5 times but she was not going to surrender so easily.

Knowing the future definitely helped in planning. She knew that Dryad Mother would cast an invulnerability spell before casting the origin spell and that one of the Seekers would invert the invulnerability spell causing it to explode in Dryad Mother’s face. She joined the chorus of spell casters contributing “Two Million Pricks” on the entire 900x900 yard battlefield. Nobody noticed the additional 10 magic arrays in a sky that was already blotted out by 100s of magic arrays. Rain had no specific target in mind, she only wanted to put a foot down and steal the EXP and the souls from the ashes of the dead. She blinked out of the area after casting the spell, moving 500 yards from her original position, almost 300 yards from the 1000 yard impact zone. She immediately used “Nether Crow Form” to split into 37 escape crows and flew off in a straight line. The crows had almost reached the 1000 yard mark when the dryad started casting the origin spell, causing the first few crows to collide with the thin spatial seal meant to prevent exit from the area. It took 27 crows to smash through the same spot before 5 manged to get out, sealing the rest within the impact zone.

Rain only had slightly over 10% HP remaining as she stood outside the impact zone, frantically healing herself to restore as much HP as possible. The “Life Support” passive ability restored her to full HP almost immediately. Though it was true that she would survive as long as 1 of the crows survived, the HP she recovered corresponded with the number of crows that survived.

System: Recognised Origin spell “Life Annihilation”. Do you wish to record it in the “The Grimoire of Over-tier Spells”?


	25. Overlord of Andal

Rain cheered when she heard the system notification. “Awesome. I had forgotten this little book existed” She pumped her fists and agreed to recording. It would be fun to give Dryad Mother a taste of her own medicine. There were lots of over-tier spells being cast in the warzone but this was the only one within range. 2 seconds later Rain’s EXP started to climb.

She summoned her doppelganger the moment the spatial membrane started to collapse. This was her insurance in case her plans didn’t pan out. She teleported to the pillar she was initially hiding behind and cast invisibility. She wandered around collecting as many souls as possible, while trying to stay away from the dryads. Over 1000 Tier 5 souls were up for grabs and Rain managed to absorb 680 of them. She absorbed 10 more Tier 6 souls, netting 7800 fragments and bringing her total tally to 9,836. She was confident of harvesting the rest as long as the 11 god ranked players, who were now Tier 5 and badly injured, could hold Dryad Mother for another 50 seconds. 30 seconds later only 5 ex-gods stood. Rain was elated to collect 6 souls bringing her tally to 9,896. By the 49th second the three team leaders and Doromithor were moments away from death. Rain decided it was time to get rid of everyone. She returned to her hiding spot to execute the next step of her plan. She boosted herself to Peak Tier 6 followed by “Camouflage”.

Shimmering lights exploded around the circle, signifying revival of the dryads. Everybody’s attention was focussed at the sinner circle where the dryads started appearing in hundreds. Dryad Mother laughed like a maniac at the plight of her enemies. Her dream of becoming an Ancient was finally just a few steps away. The silent nature of “Camouflage” ensured that no one noticed Rain chanting the spell. Their fates were sealed by the time they felt a familiar sense of horror. They finally noticed the newcomer who had brought their nightmares to life.

Rain cast defensive spells in a flurry “Absolute Defence Shield”, “Elemental Shield”, “Void Guard” boosting her defences to mind boggling levels. Dryad Mother had a brain freeze, looking at the familiar visage of the executioner and uncanny familiarity to the origin spell she cast a while ago. She knew that her dreams were shattered since only death awaited anyone below Advanced Tier 6.

Doromithor flashed a thumbs up as his body turned to dust. The 600+ Tier 5 dryads that had just revived started slowly turning to dust. Losing 5 more lives would mean the end of the world for most of them. Dryad Mother had surrendered her stripes for greater power and it became her doom. She launched a few strikes at Rain but it wasn’t enough to even scratch her defences. Rain collected the souls of Doromithor and the rest and patiently waited on Dryad Mother. One second later she turned to dust as well. Rain made sure to collect her soul. The eye had finished collecting 10,000 soul fragments, triggering an evolution.

She got down to collecting the loot starting with Dryad Mother and the rest of the Gods. She frantically collected loot while waiting for the dryads to revive for one last time. She managed to stuff the entire epic spatial pouch and rest of her bag space. There were still a lot of items splattered around. Before the 60 seconds were over she used “Void Caller”, equipped the “Ring of Power” and stood before the “Sinner’s Circle”. Surprisingly the revived dryads had no intention of fighting. They had suffered a lot today and their spirits were broken watching Dryad Mother condemning most of her own to a horrendous death. They had witnessed enough to know that fighting the Executioner of the Ancients would only result in their own deaths. They laid down their arms and surrendered before Rain.

She realised she was considerably lucky. Though her arsenal of offensive spells was fully stocked, she had depleted all her defence and life-saving spells. A fight would have plunged everyone into a life or death scenario and she was not confident of facing such a mighty force at the moment. She accepted their surrender and worked on a contract to barter the dryads’ allegiance for their lives. Even the dryads were amazed at being treated like partners rather than slaves. They were required to defend Andal against all threats, clear out the threats inside the mines and maintain the general upkeep of the place. All Rain had to do was to leave them to their own devices and mediate and troubleshoot any problems they encountered.

Rain knew it was futile to push the boundaries. The mystical energy had started penetrating her body. It was difficult for her to resist it without the ring of power. Only the dryads could survive that environment and they were her best bet at keeping the place running. She had covertly become the new Overlord of Andal and gained an army of 500 Tier 5 dryads. Rain asked them to elect a leader and got them to clear up the battlefield and store the loot within the circle tower. She blinked to the queen’s treasury and approached Crawly who was busy packing up.

“You there. You really killed yourself? I see you lost a lot of levels” Crawly said referring to Rain who was now level 152 instead of 192 since her last visit.

“Yes. Like you said, it was well worth it” Rain said with a smile. “Is your business here done?”

“Well it’s more like the volume has gone below the threshold to justify my presence. You successfully reduced my work from over 20,000 contracts here to 2 contracts. I really wish I could give you a gift but I am not allowed to mingle with worldly matters” Crawly stated with an apologetic face.

“2 contracts? I am only aware of the one I made with the surviving dryads. What’s the other?” Rain asked, sensing trouble.

“I am not allowed to share details. I can only tell you that the contract exists for over 1000 years. Though it should have expired but some clauses are simply stuck” Crawly explained.

“With only one party of the contract alive, shouldn’t it auto dissolve?” Rain asked, guessing it was Sin’s contract with Asara. Crawly smiled craftily in response. He picked up his bag of contracts and disappeared from the room, leaving Rain perplexed. That smile had thoroughly confused Rain and she understood that there was a lot more going on than what meets the eye.

A minute after Crawly’s departure, the room itself started to disintegrate. Rain quickly made her way to the queen’s treasury, only to find it disintegrating as well. She blinked to the queen’s quarters and was relieved to find that it was still structurally safe.

She spent some time exploring the entire tower. This indeed was the mainstay of the coven of Augustus. All the witches had a room for themselves. The higher the floor they lived in the higher their rank was. The queen occupied the top floor and a few floors below it. Adriana and Kijlstra were on the highest floor of the witch quarters along with one other name Rain wasn’t familiar with. Eleanor and the warden were 6 floors below them. Rain scanned through the entire 40 floors of the tower but didn’t find any room reserved for Tokie. There were no surprises that Tokie’s name was missing. Her identity was an enigma. It could have been a case of false identity to protect her and the secrets she carried. Adriana, Kijlstra and Eleanor knew her and Dryad Mother had set up a bounty on her head.

There were a lot more floors underground that served as living quarters of the dryads. They had stopped living within their trees after the trees perished due to exposure to mystical energy. Rain decided against inspecting the area, respecting the tradition established over 1000 years ago.

The dryads were busy paying respects to their departed sisters on the sinner’s circle. They had already cleared the battlefield and stacked up anything of value on the ground floor of the tower. They froze in fear when they saw Rain approaching. They soon relaxed after noticing that she wasn’t there to berate them. Rain later learnt that Asara had forbidden them from conducting any rituals in the past. She wasn’t sure if it was to stop the dryads from trying to betray her or a cruel attempt at showing them their place on the hierarchy. After the ceremony the dryads joined Rain at the base of the tower. They pulled out a huge trunk from the basement, containing Dryad Mother’s trinkets.

Rain looked at the locked trunk and found no traps on it. Rain took out the key she retrieved from the Dryad Mother’s loot and passed it to the leader of the dryads. Dark crimson light from the trunk flooded the room. Rain could feel the dryads cowering in horror at the sight of the crimson flasks inside the trunk. The leader was the only one who stood still with tears trickling down her eyes. Rain took out one of the flasks to figure out what was going on.

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Elder Dryad’s Lifeblood (Legendary rank material, consumable)

This potion contains the essence of an elder dryad. Can be consumed to boost a dryad’s power, defences and magical affinity.

Tier restriction: Tier 4 or 5

Race restriction: Dryad

Can be used to animate the corpse of a dryad or any other monster with high nature affinity

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	26. Dark Secrets

“Do all elder dryads drop their lifeblood when they die?” Rain asked. High tiered witches dropped affinity crystals. Powerful Void beasts dropped void blood. Her question was well justified. She was curious as to why there weren’t any Tier 6 dryads in a bustling dryad nest. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The truth was more sinister than she had imagined.

“They do but these flasks are much darker and can only mean that the elder dryads were ritualistically drained of their essence” the leader said in a heavy tone, “but who will do that and why?”

“Who and why are very obvious since you know whose trunk this is” Rain answered softly, “The real question is where and when? Why are there no Tier 6 dryads in this area? Was it always like that?” Rain asked.

“All dryads answered the call when Demon God Kapoornakh arrived and persuaded us to join forces with the witches, to ensure our survival in the upcoming war. Only a few nests that rejected Dryad Mother’s rule had refused the call. Queen Asara decided to teach our arch-rival, dryad mother Quincetrella, a lesson by slaying her entire nest and trapping her in a trance state within her tree. She drew a sacrificial circle around her tree on the final day of the centennial celebrations ceremony and sealed her soul within it. This was to serve as an exhibition of what happens to those that defy her. Elder witch Adriana was the only one to openly call out the queen’s actions and quit the coven in protest. Even a demon like Kapoornakh couldn’t stand this vicious and vile act of the queen and shattered the tree, releasing the dryad mother’s body. He instructed his guards to honourably dispose of the body as per the customs of the dryads. The sacrificial circle still stands. When our dryad mother returned from the war, she made a deal with the witches. We do not know the details of the deal, but it seems like these flasks were a part of it” the dryad recalled the horror of that night.

“And Asara let Kapoornakh off?” Rain questioned. It was impossible for a maniac to take a blow to her ego lying down.

“Asara wanted to teach Kapoornakh a lesson for his act of mercy but she was stopped by Augustus himself. He was disgusted with Asara’s treachery and her pathetic act of moral depravity. He decreed her a fallen queen, a first of its kind, and retracted his protection. In a fit of rage, Asara confiscated the dryad’s body, dismembered and splattered it around Augustus’ monolith, defiling it and corrupting its pious channels. Asara knew that without Augustus’ protection she would become a target of all powerful beings, including Ancients. She turned to Kapoornakh for assistance and he guided her towards Sin. Something went wrong with the summoning ritual but they still managed to summon Sin into this world. I do not know the details” the dryad replied.

“What happened next? Tell me all you know.” Rain demanded.

“Sin agreed to shelter Asara as long as everyone accepted his contract. He promised to make us stronger everyday so that we were ready for war by the time it approached our doorsteps. In exchange he only wanted our loyalty and acceptance of his methods. We helped the witches set up the darkness vein, pouring all our strength into a single ritual that lasted one whole year. In the end a dark mystical energy flew out of the summoning circle and started assaulting our bodies. We spent many months in agony, doubting every moment of our lives, until the white fog came. It was the first time we felt power surge through our body in a long time. The more we basked in the fog the stronger we became. We had over 20 elder dryads and 8 elder witches jointly commanding the forces to keep us safe” the dryad narrated.

“Did you guys get to try out your new powers?” Rain probed.

“Yes, shortly after Augustus’ death, the Lord of Destruction opened a rift to the abyss in an attempt to conquer his lands. We crushed every wave of monsters and demons he sent at us. He retreated after suffering consecutive defeats. The warlords of undead legions had a similar idea and attacked us with their full might. Despite being susceptible to blight, we managed to hand them a convincing defeat at a great cost. The undead retreated faster than they emerged and vowed not to step foot on these lands again. There were other forces that tried to take advantage of our plight but none managed to return with their heads intact. It was much later that we realised that this power was addictive and we could never revert to our original selves” the dryad spoke with pride and sadness.

“Sin seems very powerful indeed. What does he look like?”

“We do not know. He always communicated with us through an illusory image. A witch once told us that he was a tiny demon”

“Where does Dryad Mother fit in?” Rain asked further. She could feel the chill grow at the mention of her name.

“We welcomed her when she returned. She told us that she was tired of fighting for over a century and had returned to rest and enjoy her life. None of us at that time realised that she returned to kill Asara and absorb her essence. She however was surprised to see how powerful the rest of the elders had grown and started investigating. We all could sense cracks emerging between Sin and Asara. She had somehow managed to double cross him and tried to steal his power. Mother knew she had to find a way to end Asara’s life and claim Sin’s powers for herself. She sought help from her group of Gods, under the guise of cleansing the dryads of their corruption and destroying Sin. They craftily sealed Andal in an outer world and forced Sin, Asara and most of the witches to flee to the queen’s castle. Asara didn’t trust us dryads enough to evacuate us. We don’t really know what happened there but we heard that a huge battle took place between the witches and dryad mother’s team. With both sides in a stalemate, the Gods decided to seal the castle in another outer world” the dryad responded.

“Why did she choose to return here?” Rain asked.

“We don’t really know the answer. Only thing I can tell you is that a few decades after the seal was cast a lot of changes started happening around here. The white fog started thinning out. 6 of the 8 elder witches arrived here and partook in some forbidden rituals. They collectively renewed their oaths to the queen and set out to find ways of breaking the contract. The lesser witches arrived later and were never seen again. A few years later the elder dryads started disappearing. Dryad Mother arrived after all the elders disappeared and entered into a contract with the witches to guard these lands against all invaders and mining the darkness crystals in exchange for Sin’s powerful mystical energy. She however was very furious to learn that she had been tricked into sealing her soul within the tower. Apparently the seal was formed by 3 witches, instead of one. We don’t know how Asara was able to escape the seal of her own castle and seal the dryad mother here. Apart from Kijlstra, who accompanied the dryad mother here, we are not aware of the identity of the third witch”

“Wasn’t it Tokie? The witch that dryad mother wanted executed?” Rain asked

“None of us ever heard of a witch named Tokie until today. She was never a part of the coven. She must have joined after the war” the dryad responded. Rain wasn’t surprised by this reveal.

“So what’s next for you guys? Your contracts with Sin have dissolved. The mystical energy seems to be thinning. Now that Asara and Dryad Mother are dead what do you guys wish to do?”

“We follow you to the end. When the mystical energy fully dissipates we will perish along with it. Though I have a feeling we will not live long enough to see that happening” the dryad replied in a grave voice.

“Why is that so?” Rain asked. She had found some answers so far. It was obvious that the queen drained the entire coven to strengthen 6 witches and their soul fragments. The leftover essences simply could not be absorbed due to maximum affinity restrictions. All these witches would have felt their soul contracts dissolve the moment Asara died. Of the 8 elders only 6 had chosen a soul contract with the queen. Who were the other 2? Were they drained or managed to escape with their lives?

“The elder witches still live. They will be back for revenge the moment they learn of Asara’s death. I don’t think we stand a chance against them” the dryad’s response got Rain thinking. Suddenly, the fate of 500 dryads was in her hands. She could easily fix the mystical energy problem if she wished, but it would have made her the obvious culprit behind Asara’s death.

“Can you identify the 6 witches who participated in the ritual?” Rain asked.

“The strongest was Kijlstra. Other 5 were Tiara, Katie, Moksha, Salmoksha and Spree” the dryad answered.

“And these were also the witches that participated in Quincetrella’s execution?”

“Yes. And there were other lesser witches like Krystal, Eleanor and Yi Chen” all of them haven’t been seen here for ages.

Rain remembered some of these names. She was almost laughing at the ruse Kijlstra’s spirit had pulled off about curse and afterlife. She understood why Eleanor was carrying the Elder Staff for a while and escaped her punishment by avoiding its power trap. Adriana’s contributions puzzled her. She was never an intended target, just like the rest of the witches from different realms and covens.

“Are today’s events and your Executioner’s job linked to Quincetrella’s death?” the dryad asked.

Rain burst into laughter at the question, nodding in response. She took out the “Elder Staff” and placed it in front of the thunderstruck dryads and said “not all Gods are bloodsucking bastards. Some still strive for the core and just values of life. Life and death are a cycle. It wouldn’t have been a problem if Asara simply killed Quincetrella or even shattered her soul, but defiling a soul has consequences. Even I learnt that the hard way” Rain said in a stoic voice, filling the dryads’ hearts with reverence. If Kijlstra were here she would be proud of her protégé’s performance.

She fiddled through the contents of the trunk and dug out all the equipment that was specific to dryads and placed it on the floor next to the flasks of lifeblood.

“Drink up. Each of you takes a drop of lifeblood from these flasks. When done, swap into these equipment. We need to prepare before the next battle knocks on our door” Rain commanded, befuddling the dryads. She was surprised to find the leader and her team hesitate at the offer.

“What do we barter to receive those?” the leader asked.

“Nothing. Just a pledge to uphold the justice of the Gods. You only disappoint yourselves if you fail your honour” Rain said in a smug voice, further reinforcing herself as a champion of justice. She was happy to play this role to secure the dryads aid. A contract could be broken through loopholes but respect was iron forged.

Her words evoked a fervent passion among the dryads and they rushed to equip themselves. They quickly lined up and emptied the flasks, their power rising with each drop. Rain was amazed at their teamwork when they quickly identified who benefitted the most from each of the equipment pieces and swapped out older ones. All of them felt they were in some illusory environment since their new boss saw them as partners and made them feel important. None of them realised that Rain was actually Tier 4 and only appeared Tier 6 due to “God mode” and “Ring of Power”.

The dryads dispersed to carry out the tasks they had been assigned, leaving Rain alone to inspect the rest of the trunk’s contents in peace.


	27. Realm Creation Stone

Rain wasn’t surprised to find out that Dryad Mother was a hoarder. Power hungry and greedy maniacs would never share their goodies with anyone. There were equipment designs, engineering drawings, potion recipes, epic equipment sets, weapons, attributed gemstones, pieces of jewellery and other regalia. She was shocked to discover essences stones of 3 witches and a dozen affinity stones. It was apparent Dryad Mother was preparing to make a deal with some witches as an insurance. Rain proceeded to absorb the affinity stones.

System: You have gained 25% affinity with life mana. Total affinity is now 85%

System: You have gained 12% affinity with space mana. Total affinity is now 90%. You have received an affinity crystal for 1% space affinity.

System: You have gained 25% affinity with illusion mana. Total affinity is now 177%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with time mana. Total affinity is now 169%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with death mana. Total affinity is now 90%

System: You have gained 25% affinity with magnetic mana. Total affinity is now 100%. You have received an affinity crystal for 10% magnetic affinity.

The most exciting item was a purplish gem that was cold to touch.

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Realm Creation Stone (Lesser Divine Ranked Artefact)

Wraps a predefined area into its own outer world.

Each activation requires: 2,000,000,000,000 EXP; 100,000 magic crystals; 1000 mana stones; 50 bottles of temporal sand; and 50 bottles of spatial silver.

Activation requirements increase by 10% for every elemental vein in the area.

Active Skill 1 – Create Outer World

Wraps an area equivalent to 50,000 square yards into an outer world. Every additional 10,000 square yards consumes and additional 1% resources.

Cooldown: 100 days

Divine Ability – Experience Bank

Transfer the experience gained into the stone for storage. You can toggle this feature On/Off depending on your needs. Stored EXP can be used to power the realm creation or boost levels or growth items requiring EXP.

Current Storage: 80,458,759,000 / 20,000,000,000,000

Current Status: Off

Ability Skill 1: Change Storage Status

Once the ability is turned on, all EXP gained will be transferred to the stone for the entire duration

No cooldown

Ability Skill 2: Retrieve EXP

Select a target to transfer the EXP stored in the stone. Retrieval will automatically turn the storage status to off to prevent loopback.

No cooldown

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“80 billion of free EXP. Yum!” Rain muttered before boosting herself. She still didn’t have enough to upgrade “Voidwalker’s staff” to fragmented legendary 11. There were 2 major milestones she wanted to achieve before taking her Tier 5 trial, upgrading “Voidwalker’s staff” to legendary rank and unlocking 100% of Space affinity.

With the day’s matters resolved, she finally found the opportunity to check out the upgraded eye of dark seer.

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Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous (Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Necklace)

The eye sees all and sundry, near or far.

Level 140-200

Equipment Requirements: Intelligence 6000

All basic attributes: +level x 16

All hidden attributes: +level x 10

Additional Active Skill 1: Reveal

Reveals a 1250x1250 yards area up to 5000 yards away. All stealthy and invisible units are revealed as well.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Appraise

Appraises all items up to one grade higher at no cost. Higher grade items require magic crystals for appraisal.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3: Spy Wards

Plant invisible wards along a path to follow or track movement of targets. Each ward lasts for 60 minutes and can track invisible units.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 4: Divine Vision

Peek through the future for a maximum of 5 seconds, up to 5 times a day.

Cooldown: 24 hours

Additional Active Skill 5: Hypnotise

Take control of any target having the same soul level or lower, for 30 seconds.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Additional Active Skill 6: Soul Freeze

Whenever you make direct eye contact with a target, freeze them through a soul attack for 3 seconds. Targets who resist the frozen state will have their movement and attack speed reduced by 50% for 1 second.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Additional Passive Skill 1: Eye of Seer

Reveals all soul signatures within a 50 yards radius, with a ± %soul level comparison indicator.

Reveals all life signatures within a 150 yard radius

Reveals critical details of targets within 30 yards, like location of power cores, elemental weakness, armour joints and critical attack zones

Additional Passive Skill 2: Clear Vision

Allows the user to see through illusions and locate traps within 80 yards. Provides 360 degree vision.

Additional Passive Skill 3: Blind Vision

Maintain your eyesight at peak level irrespective of the environment or debuff effects.

The Seer was well known for his visions of the past and future and his position as the head of the temple of doom allowed him divinations from the Gods. After witnessing his plans being foiled time and again the orc emperor struck a deal with the Seer to spare his life and those of his followers in return for not aiding the alliance of human and beastmen clans. After the war was over the Seer’s subordinates turned on him and executed him for his treachery.

The power of the eye has degraded over time and can be restored to next grade by absorbing souls of equivalent power. Requires 10,000 fragments of souls to upgrade to the next level. Souls weakened by over 40% or those slain by the wielder can be absorbed. Tier 5/6 souls contribute 1/10 fragments each. Currently (26/10,000)

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rain was satisfied with the eye’s current status. The new skills of Hypnotise and Soul Freeze, along with critical details, would make any melee attacker run for cover. Upgrading it to the next level was a fool's dream. Rain severely lacked experience in melee fights. She had learnt a few combat techniques that could be executed with a staff. She made a mental note to check out all the casting type combat techniques next time she visited the guild residence training room.

She was slightly disturbed by the ghastly tale narrated by the dryad. She was wondering why a self-righteous person like Eleanor would defile something. Was it queen’s orders or rivalry with Kijlstra that prompted such a response? She left to conduct a detailed inspection of the witch’s rooms, hoping to uncover more secrets.

Her efforts were mostly futile. Most of the safes were empty. The atlas didn’t show anything more than what was visible to the naked eye. Her exploits only consisted of some low grade spells and a few private journals of the residents. It was only when she reached the rooms of mid-tier witches when things got slightly interesting. Krystal used to keep a secret ledger on every witch of importance and was secretly collecting mana and life signatures of every witch in the coven. She probably was Chezumra’s spy for a very long time and had infiltrated the coven successfully.

She had a volume dedicated to Kijlstra, rating her as unpredictable, highly survivable and deadlier than the queen. Rain’s intuition had kept pricking her about Kijstra. She couldn’t be discounted even after death. Could a trickster ever really trust someone so much as to make a soul contract? Eleanor’s description was pretty demeaning too. She was the most talented, with a high sense of entitlement, and too thick to acknowledge anyone other than Kijlstra as her equal. Adriana was the most trusting and cool headed, more accomplished than Kijlstra but too honourable and righteous to serve any practical purpose in the coven.

The page where Rain froze belonged to a witch named Kriti. “A glare from her and the queen shook with fear. Who is she and why does she refuse to come out of her room? Only 2 sightings in 500 years”. Kriti was the occupant of the first room on the highest floor. Krystal had pages filled with just her name with question marks everywhere. Rain had not noticed any life or soul signatures on any of the floors in her last sweep. She made a mental note to avoid her room later. She was both curious and scared to approach her room. Eleanor’s room was so stark that it only had a wooden pillow and a cup inside. Rain started making her way to the upper floors. Only Adriana’s room had some cool equipment but it was useless since it was all bound to her.

She felt a shadow wash over her when she started making her way up to the queen’s war room. It was mere intuition rather than life, soul or mana signature that alerted her of this presence. She froze for a while and tried to peek towards the source of the shadow, only to find Kriti’s door slightly ajar.

“Amazing! You could sense my presence, without sensing any presence. I never knew someone so capable enlisted in this coven” a voice that seemed to burst from every direction had Rain pushed to the edge of her wits. For the first time it felt like her life was not in her own hands. The witch’s presence hadn’t even triggered “god mode”.


	28. Antiquity Witch Mother

Rain sensed curiosity and a faint glimmer of appreciation in the tone. There wasn’t any killing intent and hence she decided to be truthful and upright in her approach.

“Esteemed Lady Witch! I am just an ordinary witch and not a member of this coven. The coven was disbanded after Queen Asara’s death” Rain answered as humbly as possible.

“Aha that makes things interesting. I thought you were the mighty ‘Executioner for the Ancients’, the harbinger of justice and what not”. The mocking tone of the voice made Rain shudder.

“That was just a persona I adopted to punish Dryad Mother and not reveal my true identity. I didn’t want anyone to suffer in case I failed to kill her” Rain answered truthfully.

“You are too brave and too stupid to live life on a chance. Did you really think Dryad Mother was so simple to kill? Twice!” The mocking tone changed to admiration, making Rain relax a bit.

“I did it because it had to be done. Had Dryad Mother escaped this place she would have burnt everything down to fuel her power” Rain explained

“So you did it out of your own conviction and not to claim her power?”

“My intention was never to claim her power, though I would never refuse the spoils of victory” Rain honestly stated with a steady voice.

“Yet you killed Gurjaden and Kapoornakh without finding out the truth, had Asara’s spirit murder Kijlstra and later killed her as well, and a long line of Godly warriors without even blinking at the possibility of your actions destabilising the realm, without any fear of repercussion. You even killed yourself for fun. Is life really so trivial?” the words caused Rain to rethink the events she had unleashed. It was true that she killed without regret, riding her high horse around to justify her actions. She was no different than those she killed.

“Those two demons gave me no other option. I had to kill them to survive. It’s true that I still don’t know the truth but I refuse to believe that my life is not as significant compared to those godly ranked warriors who stamp out anyone inferior to them, without a second thought. As for Asara and Kijlstra, I had an overwhelming sense of pity for Dryad Mother. I had no idea how dirty the state of affairs already was. While I look like a fool for the reasons I did things, I still feel they had to be done. Things might have been the same if both parties were honest about their dealings. Killing myself was not for fun but a way to face the repercussions of a task half done. I don’t think life is trivial but it does not mean I will stop fighting for what I feel is right. Lastly, I am sure both Asara and Kijlstra are alive and well. If only there was a way to count how many of them exist” Rain stated, exhaling deeply after finishing her reasoning.

“Hahaha. They indeed are alive, though not as well as they could have been. They will definitely come for you when they are ready. They are not so stupid to jump in right after you handed them their asses on a platter. I would advise you to destroy her precious book as soon as you have the chance. If she succeeds in getting what she wants it would be a lot worse than unleashing Dryad Mother on this world”

“Lady Kriti, if I may ask? Why didn’t you stop Asara when she went rogue and what aren’t you stopping her now?” Rain asked sheepishly

“So you know my name! I am impressed. Don’t say I just stood and watched. I spotted your potential after watching your performance in the psychedelic casket. I have kept an eye out for you since. The way you fought Gurjaden was exemplary, though it was the way you fought Kapoornakh that convinced me to pass you my legacy. Talking to you today has convinced me that it was the right decision. It’s an achievement to become an Antiquity witch at Tier 4. The challenges you are going to face next are nothing like what you have encountered so far. I won’t tell you what you need to do. Just follow the same foresight and intuition you have displayed so far and stay grounded. I do feel I owe you a reward for consistently exceeding my expectations, especially for releasing Augustus’ spirit, even though you were thoroughly ignorant of your actions. Well the look on your face was priceless” Kriti stated with a smile

System: Antiquity Witch Mother Kritikalova has acknowledged your achievements and rewarded you with: +50 Billion EXP, +3 Levels, +10,000 Skill Mastery Points, +200 Legacy Skill Points, +1 Legacy Skill Book, +1 Legacy Crystal Ball, +1 Seven Luminaries Treasure Chest, +1 Kritikalova’s Legacy Chest, +200 Humanity Reputation Points

“It seems there is someone else interested to meet you as well” Kriti pointed out at the glowing belt Rain was wearing, “Goodbye then”, her parting words were lost on Rain who had been sucked into the belt before she could finish her sentence.


	29. Ruins of Kamchatkhor

A vast stretch of ruinous desert lay bare as far as the eye could see. The winds were so fierce that they scorched and melted the sandy surface of the desert while flinging entire blocks of dunes from one spot to another. Huge rocks were randomly flung into the sky by the scowling winds, only to disintegrate into particulate mist when they hit the ground, filling the area with a toxic metallic pink mist.

Rain had trouble adapting to the new environment. She was draining stamina faster than a blood gash. The gravity in the area was making her movements sluggish. All skills and spells were unavailable and even passive effects and attribute bonuses from equipment were disabled. She knew she wouldn’t last long after inhaling the toxic mist cloud that was slowly approaching her. She had to quickly find a safe place to survive the ravaging energies at play in the area. Her intuition was confirmed by a system prompt.

System: You have discovered the ruins of Kamchatkhor, the greatest city ever known to Gods and Titans. All forms of teleportation, flight and communication are prohibited. Use of mana, with the exception of ruin mana, is prohibited.

System: The toxicity in the environment is draining 5% of your stamina per second. Find a safe spot within the next 15 seconds, or find alternate means to maintain your stamina above 15% mark to survive.

Rain knew that the only way to survive this environment was to use it to her advantage. She took a good look at the options ahead of her, or rather lack of them. The winds, gravity, sand and the toxic mist were competing to kill her. She couldn’t access the contents of her bag to retrieve stamina potions either. Clock was ticking as she watched a massive toxic mist cloud approach her. Anybody with even one functioning brain cell would know to instinctively run away from the mist cloud. Rain however decided to dive straight into it. She knew it was only a matter of time before the mist caught up with her. She could outrun the wind in a typical environment with the help of her skills. The environmental restrictions and increased gravity had convinced her that running was futile.

The counter jumped from 13 to 11 the moment Rain entered the centre of the thick toxic mist. She never stopped to question her decision since she was looking for something specific. 3 seconds later the counter was reduced to 5 seconds. With 2 seconds remaining Rain finally found what she was looking for. Just before the counter struck 1, a huge swirl of wind hit the rock she was standing on, launching her and the rock up in the air and beyond the reach of the toxic mist. She could feel that her stamina drain had stemmed considerably. She didn’t bother to check that the counter stood frozen at 1 second.

The way ahead was clearer now. She just had to find a rock to step on, before the one she was on went back down and exploded in a toxic mist, killing her on the spot. It was a dizzying experience when she jumped on to the rock approaching from behind her, in order to move forward. The first few jumps were rather tragic and she hurt herself considerably in the process. She slowly acclimatised herself with the gravity flips in the environment, smoothly jumping from one rock to another. 10 seconds later her HP wasn’t falling anymore. Rain drew “Cleansing Fountain” using “Hexotic Trap” technique at Silver level the moment she found an opportunity and powered it to instantly cleanse the toxicity from exposure to the mist, recovering 15% Stamina, HP and concentration. While this wasn’t a huge gain, it earned her 3 more seconds of time and fully restored her stamina regeneration rate to peak condition. 60 seconds of rock hopping earned her 3 more seconds of life.

She couldn’t see much of the city below that was overrun with sand and mist. “There must be something more to this place” Rain mumbled while looking around for clues between her hops. She finally caught a glimpse of something strange at the horizon. There was a dark cloud hovering around 1000 yards above the ground. What made it strange was the faint traces of divine might it exuded. She deduced that the cloud was her destination and started planning a route towards it. She had to account for the direction of the wind, the size and trajectory of the rocks and the repression from divine might when they got closer to the cloud. Rain took a few risks to align herself for a collision with the cloud.

The nearer she got the tougher it became to move forward. Divine might was slowing down the rocks and giving her less time between hops. When she got around 500 yards of the cloud, she found herself running and hopping back to put more distance between herself and the cloud. Gaining additional 250 yards had allowed her to observe the effects of divine might on the rocks. She studied the altered trajectories from a distance and waited for the perfect rock to jump on. She had to find the optimal sized rock, big enough to carry her and small enough to fly over the cloud, at the right time and trajectory. Five seconds later she decided to take a leap of faith and caught hold of a rock, hoping to arrive at her destination safely. Contrary to expectations, the impact of her landing spun the rock, altering its trajectory and taking it higher and wider than its intended route. 

Rain trusted her instincts and made a full powered jump from the perigee. She knew she was going to fall short by a few yards but it didn't worry her at all. She bridged the distance with her scythe shaped staff, using it as an ice axe, and latched on to the periphery of the cloud. Her fate and her body hung in balance for the next few seconds,1000 yards above the ground. She struggled against the divine might to pull herself up and above the cloud, expending every drop of stamina she gained during rock hopping. She finally succeeded in dragging herself upon the edge of the cloud, dropping her stamina below 1%. She stayed there lying on the edge, drenched in sweat and catching her breath, waiting for the system to penalise her for breaching the 15% limit.

No such penalty was applied. Divine might that was trying to throw her off a while ago was now rejuvenating her faster than any spells she knew of. Within seconds she was back to full power. She had finally found a safe zone.

“I usually don’t bet on horses, but when I do I have 1% chance of success” a sly voice interrupted her celebrations. Rain tried to locate the source of the voice but was stumped to find that the tiny little cloud had grown to the size of a full blown city. All the structures and constructions in the city were mere illusions. It looked more like a life size mock up done by a grandmaster architect.

“Are you telling me that I had only 1% chance of making it here or you confused me with a horse?” Rain asked with a disgusted expression.

“Hahaha. There are 3 ways of getting into this city, yet you showed me a 4th way. I must say it was mightily amusing to see someone making a mountain out of a molehill” the voice said.

“I am glad to be your muse. Could you tell me if it were you who brought me here? Why am I here?” Rain spoke, letting her irritation show at the unknown person.

“Emanazil, I asked you to guide our guest into the city, not mock them” a deep thunderous voice reverberated through the city, shaking the illusory structures.

“Yes Master! … This way my lady” a terrified dragonoid half-elf revealed himself and asked Rain to follow him. They made their way through the myriad lanes and roads in the city, passing by various landmarks. Emanazil was happily giving Rain a tour of the virtual city, describing the major landmarks and narrating historical milestones of the long lost city below. She was impressed by the depth of details that went into making the illusory structures in the city. Their journey culminated in front of the palace courtyard and Rain was asked to wait there. A huge dragon emerged from the city gates and stared deep into Rain’s eyes, as if trying to study her and scan all her memories. The dragon transformed into a human and approached her casually. Rain was thoroughly suppressed by the divine might the dragon exuded.

“Impossible! You don’t have a shred of ruin, yet you arrived here unscathed? Is there a secret you are hiding?” The dragon was thoroughly amused at Rain.

“I simply refuse to die in vain. It was a fun ride here though” Rain answered.

“Indeed. Just the kind of person I was looking for. Tell me frankly. If I were to challenge you to a fight, would you accept it?” the dragon asked.

“I would. If it’s a fair fight” Rain answered truthfully.

“An ancient challenging a mortal is considered fair?” the dragon asked.

“I would consider it fair if it were held at a neutral location, where both parties can use their skills to the fullest. I do not fear challenging an ancient to a duel” Rain answered

“Interesting. How is that not vain?” the dragon asked curiously

“They say you learn a lot more from failure than from success. I say you learn the most from facing impossible odds. Success or failure is what you make of them odds. Usually people fight with their strength or wits. I fight with both and more. It’s not about win or lose. It’s about strength of conviction” Rain stated with a clear head

“Do you know who I am and why I brought you here?” the dragon asked with a smile

“I have no idea, but if the ruins of the city below is your doing I would be able to fathom a guess”

“Go ahead”

“You are the God of Chaos. You want resources to reconstruct the city and you want me to gather them for you” Rain answered

“What gave me away?” the dragon asked with a shocked face

“The city below, the dead zone of destruction as far the eye can see. The perfect illusory replica of the same city up in the sky. And a mana element that doesn’t exist naturally”

“Indeed. If you gather all the necessary items, designs and raw material, I would give you the power to rule the world. The things you need to gather won’t be easy and will require you to punch above your weight at times. If you succeed in your tasks, you’ll have your own custom armour, staff, legacy of ancients, a peerless bloodline, secret technique tablets and essences of power” the dragon spoke in a calm but sensual manner, emphasising on the thrill of combat and excitement as well the plethora of powerful rewards, pausing at times to display his eloquence and magnanimity.

“So do you accept my commission?” the dragon asked with a surreal smile.

“No” replied Rain. The firm response stunned the dragon as he could sense her heartbeat pulsating with every word he said. The smile on its face disappeared.

“Why is that?” the dragon asked

“Because you are not the God of Chaos. You are a phoney. You were too quick to accept my theory, even though it was intentionally flawed. I don’t work with shady people” Rain said with a smirk on her face.

That response made the dragon yell with anger, he had no idea how Rain had sensed his facade. His pitch had been amazing and mostly genuine, so there was no way there was a flaw with his execution. To make matters worse Rain had led him on and made him believe that he was on the verge of victory. Had her reason for denial been the risks or the rewards, he could have another chance at it, but it wasn’t meant to be. The dragon and the illusory landscape started to slowly disappear. It felt as if the cloud had started to disintegrate, but the surface stood still. When the illusions fully dissipated Rain saw a real dragon flying above her, with 5 figures seated atop it.


	30. The Sixth Element

The dragon circled around Rain before landing a fair distance away. It transformed into a majestic Goddess and stood in front of the group of five ladies. Rain had trouble breathing. She struggled to maintain her balance and composure while facing the combined divine might of these ladies. Her jaws dropped when she found Kriti among the group. She lost her footing and stumbled to the ground when ripples of power surged through her body. Just a wave of the Goddess' hands had restored all her skills, spells, attribute bonuses and passive auras. “God mode” instantly activated and pushed her to tier 5. If divine beings had such powerful abilities at their disposal it was naïve to assume that they could be challenged to a duel.

“Kriti made a powerful recommendation, but I have a habit of double checking everything. You did well in your assessment, but I still have a doubt about your conversation with the dragon. Would you clarify why you didn’t take the deal?” the goddess spoke with measured elegance.

“There was nothing wrong with the deal. However, the dragon spoke to me like he knew me very well. He knew what excites me and what gets me motivated. Only someone who has known me or studied me for a while could know such details. The pitch was too perfect to qualify for a first meeting. That’s where my intuition kicked in, alerting me to a perfectly crafted trap.” Rain explained why she turned down the offer.

“I see. So nothing can be too good to be true. I’ll keep that in mind while preparing my next assessment” the Goddess gave Rain a nod of approval before speaking again “coming back to the reason why you were brought here, let me introduce you to the Supreme Council of Witch Mothers. You have already met Kriti, meet Greta the Eternity witch mother, Shin Shin the Divinity witch mother, Kushala the Demonic witch mother and Astra the Celestial witch mother, and I am Tian Shan the Goddess of Chaos that you so forthrightly called a phoney” the Goddess shook her head, causing Rain to blush with embarrassment.

“After many centuries we have a new opening, I was wondering if you would be keen to join us?” the Goddess’ words left Rain dumbstruck. She tried to speak but no words came out of her mouth. Sensing her bewilderment, the goddess continued “we have finally created a new supreme element and need someone to share the burden we carry. I believe you are an antiquity witch who is yet to gain affinity towards the final element. This makes you a perfect candidate”

“It would be my honour to join you, but why me? I do not feel qualified enough to share the same stage with you all. I have still so much to learn, experience and experiment” Rain stated

“I take offence to that” Astra said while laughing out loudly.

“We all do! Don’t make us ladies feel like wretched old fogies. We all love to learn, experience and experiment” Kushala chirped, joining the rest of the witches, causing Rain to flush totally red.

“You became an Antiquity witch at Tier 4. Why not become a Chaos witch at Tier 5. If you don’t like it, you can always revert back at Tier 6. I seriously doubt you will complain since we all have been overwhelmed by this new element’s power. I’ll be frank, this is not an easy element to conquer since it is more demanding on the life force than illusion or divine. Your trial won’t be an easy one either. So are you ready for the challenge?” Kriti offered some tough advice to Rain and gave her some time to contemplate her plans. She was really fascinated by the idea of an Infinity witch but the current offer opened doors to new frontiers, no one had explored before. The title of a chaos witch felt too natural to be ignored and perfectly reflected her personality.

“Ok. I’ll do it, but I need to do a couple of things to prepare for my tier 5 class change. Since it's going to be tough, I need to get tougher” Rain stated truthfully.

“Anything we can help with?” Greta offered, making Rain blush again.

“I need to maximize my space affinity, I am still short of 10% and I need to earn enough EXP to upgrade my staff” Rain stated truthfully, even though she was visibly embarrassed she didn’t want to give the wrong impression to the rest of the witches.

“There you go” Astra handed her an affinity stone for the space element.

“Did I mention you could gain a lot of EXP if you took my deal” the Goddess quipped, causing all the witches to burst in laughter again and embarrassing Rain to a point that she covered her face with her hands.

“Actually I still need help with the city construction. We all have already distributed the load among ourselves, but I can offload some of the work to you. I really hate these endless grinding jobs. Do you mind helping me out? I won’t be offering you any rewards for such boring and monotonous work though. I really look forward to your successful class change, it will be a lot more rewarding for all of us here to see our effort succeed. Ironically, you reap all the benefits instead” the Goddess stated in a stoic voice.

“Cool. And that’s how you ensure 100% compliance on all your contracts. You nailed it this time” Rain said with a vivid smile on her face, causing the witches to burst into laughter. Goddess was left speechless at Rain’s cheeky and candid reply.

“It seems Kriti has found one just like herself” she said, laughing it off. She was indeed impressed with Rain so far. “Before I send you off on a mission I believe you deserve a reward for acing my assessment.” A pale stream of energy emerged out of the goddess’s arms and pierced Rain’s forehead, lifting her up in the air. The searing pain caused her to shiver and scream. The screams got louder and louder, befuddling everyone present on the scene.

“Something is not right. It was supposed to be painful but it should have been over by now” a horrified Goddess stated in a mild state of panic. Over 10 seconds had passed since the energy transfusion started. Rain’s body was flailing at the end of the energy beam. Her screams had gotten so loud that the platform they stood on started to shake and dissipate. Even the Goddess’ eternal will was not sufficient to contain the platform’s dissipation. The witch mothers rushed to the Goddess’ aid and pooled their powers to stabilise the cloud. The energy beam dissipated 25 seconds later, throwing Rain’s body back to the ground. Kriti quickly ran over to check on her.

“She lives! Though it will be sometime before she would be able to walk again” she declared. The energy beam was pure chaos mana. It was supposed to suppress the void energy channel and set up a chaos energy channel. The lack of void affinity should have made it a lot easier and a lot less painful to achieve. They initially thought that Rain had lied about lack of void affinity, but soon came to the realisation that Rain had more energy channels in her body than a regular antiquity witch. They were thoroughly stumped to learn that Rain had managed to raise the affinity cap for primary and secondary supreme elements, making the channel creation a lot more complicated. They had no choice but to wait for her to regain consciousness before further analysis could be done.

“You mentioned that she didn’t absorb the queen’s or a fallen’s lifeblood. How was she able to amass 10 basic energy channels instead of 7?” the goddess turned to Kriti with a dissatisfied look.

“She didn’t. Don’t tell me you don’t trust your own judgement?” Kriti retorted. It was one of the first few criteria for selecting a witch mother. Most witches wouldn’t think twice about gaining affinity from dubious sources. Only the supreme council knew the truth that a witch’s essence could not be extracted as long as she didn’t absorb any other witch’s essence. It was a catch all clause that would be implicitly activated the moment a witch took that step.

Rain was forcefully logged out from the system a few seconds after the chaos beam had fully drained her concentration. She hurriedly reached out for the last bottle of S-ranked nutrient solution and drank it, before moving on to the A-ranked fluids. 50 bottles later, she felt the warmth of the nutrient fluid slowly permeating through her body. She used the empty crate of nutrient fluids as a makeshift pillow and crashed on the floor. When she woke up 10 hours later, she could feel her body aching all over. She dragged herself to the bedroom and slept for another 6 hours.

It was 5 am when she woke up. She put on a track suit and stepped out for a jog. As she made her way through the city, she was surprised to find that none of the people whom she would occasionally bump into during her morning jogs were out today. Her curiosity picked up when she saw a queue forming outside the training centre she used to visit. She used her platinum membership privileges to bypass the queue and headed inside to check what the commotion was about.

Rain was pleased to learn that the training centre was planning to auction off a stack of S-ranked nutrient fluids to new members in order to boost the membership numbers. She went into the management office to make a fuss about the lack of such offers to existing members. There was no way she would let go of such a godsend opportunity. The management was already drawing a lot of flak from existing members for pulling such a move. It was the first time a platinum member had championed such a cause. The manager had no choice but to offer her 10 bottles at 50% premium to pacify her anger. She could get a 30% discount for paying with God’s Domain gold coins.

She decided against paying in gold coins, fearing that the transaction could reveal her identity. She fumed with anger over the atrociously priced nutrient fluids and forced the manager to negotiate the price. Sensing a threat to his job, the manager tried to placate her with additional 5 bottles at a reduced price of 25% premium above the market price. When Rain left the training centre, she had 20 bottles of S-nutrient fluid with her. She had a bright smile on her face despite spending a hefty amount on them. She could easily make up for it using the gold from the queen’s safe.


	31. Champion of Chaos

Rain was welcomed by a series of system notifications after she logged back into the game.

System: Tian Shan the Goddess of Chaos has recognised you as her Champion. All attributes (including luck) +5%. Received +1 seal of authority (signet ring), +1 Chaos Skill Book. You’ll unlock a new supreme element Chaos to replace the Void element.

System: You have unlocked a new supreme element affinity: Chaos

System: You have gained 100% affinity with Chaos mana. Total affinity is now 100%

System: Maximum Chaos element affinity cap has been raised by 100%.

System: You have been invited to join the Supreme Council of Witch Mothers. You are required to successfully class change into a Chaos Witch to qualify as an honorary member.

System: As an invitee to the Supreme Council of Witch Mothers, you are prohibited from absorbing the essence of other witches.

System: Failed to replace Void element channel with Chaos. You may suffer from elemental poisoning due to Chaos mana clashing with other elemental mana (other than primary and secondary affinity elements), randomly over tier x 4 hours. Depending on the clashing elements you may experience sanctions relating to attribute loss and/or, EXP, HP or mana reduction by the difference of the affinity %, for a duration of 24 hours. You may experience additional side effects as well.

System: You can either raise your Void affinity to be the same as Chaos affinity, or reduce mana affinity for offending elements to less than 10% or ensure that all elements have the same affinity, to mitigate the risk of poisoning.

System: You are suffering from elemental poisoning. Clash between Chaos and Fire ended in a tie. Your maximum damage will be reduced by 0% for the next 24 hours. Your body is enveloped in blue fire, resulting in +1000 fire resistance for next 100 seconds, any targets within 5 yards will take fire damage.

Rain panicked after reading the messages. Her immediate response was to try and absorb Void affinity crystals and stones.

System: Void energy channels have been damaged. You cannot gain Void affinity until they are repaired. Tier up to repair the channel.

“Damn. What kind of a reward is that” she mumbled. She took a look at her current elemental affinity and realised that the problem wasn’t that grave. She immediately started absorbing darkness affinity to boost it to maximum.

System: You have gained 10% affinity with Darkness mana. Total affinity is now 46%

. . . .

System: You have gained 15% affinity with Darkness mana. Total affinity is now 100%. You have received an affinity crystal for 10% Darkness affinity.

System: You have gained 10% affinity with Space mana. Total affinity is now 100%. You have received an affinity crystal for 5% Space affinity.

Lastly she only had to worry about the Life and Death. She had 85% life affinity and 90% death affinity, giving her a worst case suppression of 15%. Lost in thoughts, she forgot that her armour had finished evolution.

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Skin of Elemental Origins (Legendary Rank, Cloth Armour Set)

Consists of a total 3 pieces. Robe, Gloves and Shoes

Equipment Requirements: Strength 5000, Agility 6000, Intelligence 7000

Equipment Restrictions: Can only be equipped by a witch with 100% affinity towards all basic elements in her realm and unlocked at least 1 supreme element. All 3 pieces must be worn together to gain bonuses.

Defence +7500, Intelligence +6000, Agility +5000, Strength +4500, Vitality +4500, Endurance +3000

All hidden attributes: +4000

When equipped

Defence against physical attacks: + 5 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

Defence against elemental attacks (mastered by user): + 12 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

Defence against other magical attacks: + 8 x level x tier x total supreme affinity

All basic attributes: + level x tier x total supreme affinity x 3

All hidden attributes: + level x tier x total supreme affinity x 2

Casting speed +45%

Spell Completion Rate +9%

All healing and buffs received +40%

Movement and attack speed +120%

Stamina and Concentration consumption -30%

All item level requirements reduced by 25 Levels.

Free Attribute Points: + tier x tier every 5 levels

Robe Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Hexathon

Area of coverage for all hexes increased by 25 yards. Life force consumption reduced by 35%. Cooldown reduced by 50%. Stackable hexes gain additional 25% power.

Reduces damage received from hexes by 45%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Life Support

When below 15% HP, HP loss reduced by 50%. All healing effects under life support +500%

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Positivity Aura

Any negative effects will timeout after 1 second. Allies in a 50 yard circle will have negative effects reduced by 50%. Positive buffs and healing +25%.

Additional Passive Skill 4 – Feedback

All melee attacks will reflect 15% damage back to the attacker.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Monster’s Best Friend

Gives you a 40% chance to befriend a monster of the same tier and +Tier Difference*10%. The befriended monster can be used as a mount for 12 hours. While the monster would defend you if you are attacked, there is only a 50% chance that the monster would aid you in a fight.

Gain +10 favourability with the befriended monster, increasing your chance of befriending it again by 10% (max 100%) after 1 natural day.

Cooldown: 2 hours.

Additional Active Skill 2 – Elemental Shield

Grants you a life shield that absorbs damage worth 12 x Maximum HP, increases casting speed by 22% and movement speed by 180%.

Shield is capable of recovering damage at twice the caster’s regeneration rate. All healing effects restore shield by 200% of healing received.

Duration: 180 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 3 – Spatial Barrier

Disable basic teleportation, flight and communications in 1000 yards around the caster. All teleportation scrolls/skills up to basic tier 4 will be disabled. None will be allowed to leave the area until the barrier is in effect.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 4 – Absolute Defence Shield

Makes you invulnerable for 12 seconds. Same tier or below attacks are ignored. Higher tier attacks drain the durability of the shield by tier difference per attack. The shield crumbles if 150 points of durability are lost within the active duration.

Duration: 12 seconds

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Elemental Affinity Ability 1 – Whiplash

Activation Condition: 3 or more targets within 25 yard

Attack up to 10 targets with elemental whips. Each whip is composed of mana elements you have affinity towards and do elemental damage +total elemental affinity%. The whips lock on to the target after the first hit and continue attacking them every second for a maximum of 5 times.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Elemental Affinity Ability 2 – Affinity Boost

Activation Condition: at least 10% affinity with a chosen element.

Permanently lose 1% affinity with an element to temporarily boost your affinity by 50% for 60 seconds. Temporary boost can exceed your affinity cap.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Supreme Elemental Affinity Ability 1 – Illusory Loop

Activation Condition: 3 or more targets within 25 yard

Using mastery over illusion, time & space, lock up to 10 targets in an illusory world, forcing them to repeat the last 1 second of activity for the next 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Gloves Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Safer Collaterals

Damage to all friendly units will be reduced by 88%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Precision Strike

Grants a 42% chance that an attack would alter its trajectory to strike from a blind spot.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Blunt Force

Melee attacks will carry an impact force equal to the maximum damage. Targets have a 20% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Elemental Prison

Imprison one target, up to 1 tier higher, in an elemental prison for 60 seconds. Target can be attacked using legacy spells without affecting the prison. Target must break out of prison before attacking others. Each attack will reflect 25% damage back to the attacker.

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 2 – Switch Target

Divert an attack from its intended target to another target at 110% damage. Rebounding the attack on caster reduces the damage to 55%

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Handy Mode

Allows you to wield a second two-handed staff for 180 seconds. You receive 75% bonuses and all skills from the staff

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 4 – Speed Burst

Increase your attack speed by 250% and maximum damage by 500%, while reducing critical chance by 25% for 10 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Supreme Elemental Affinity Ability 1 – Attack Queue

Activation Condition: Manual activation

Queue up to 5 single target attacks, and lock them on up to 5 targets for simultaneous release. Queued attacks cannot be dodged by the target that has been locked on. Target lock status will be lost if the target goes beyond 1000 yards before the queue is released. The queue will expire if not utilised within 20 seconds.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Shoes Skills

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Soundless Motion

Witch’s movements on any type of surface, even at maximum speed, do not produce any sound.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Phase Shift

Automatically moves you 10 yards away in a random direction when attacked from stealth. Triggers once every 10 seconds.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Combat Mode

Increases damage from offensive combat techniques by 15%. Footwork techniques can be executed 20% faster.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Timing and Placement

When activated prior to casting a spell or hex, the witch would be teleported to any predetermined point within 500 yards. After casting is complete the witch will be teleported back to the initial spot.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Additional Active Skill 2 – Swap Position

Swap position with any target physically in 350 yards.

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Glue Trap

Setup up to 5 glue traps in the next 60 seconds. Targets of the same tier or below will be immobilised for 5 seconds. Higher tier targets will have their movement speed reduced by 50% and will be immobilised if they step on Tier Difference + 1 traps.

Duration per trap: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 4 – Teleprompt

Increase your movement speed by 1000% for 10 seconds. You’ll lose the speed benefit if you attack.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Bound Set Equipment Bonus

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Legacy Discount

All legacy spells will consume 35% lesser mana.

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain

Cannot be traded.

Cannot be dropped.

Conjured out of elements from seven different realms and bound together by seals of seven witch queens, this armour would be awarded to the witch who had conquered all basic elements and unlocked at least 1 supreme element from their realm.

Total supreme affinity (Illusion, Time, Space, Chaos, Void): 546%

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She faced a difficult situation since a class change would reset her primary alignment to Chaos. This would create a disparity between Chaos and Void by creating a long term affinity gap. There was also a chance of Time to be kicked out of alignment. Poisoning due to Time affinity could cripple her after a class change, due to an almost 100% difference.

“I must consult the witch mothers before deciding on a class change” She mumbled. It was futile to join the Supreme Council if it could cripple or kill her every 16 to 24 hours.


	32. Legendary Passive Title

Rain’s panic knew no bounds. Becoming a champion had opened up a path towards becoming a queen in future, however the supreme council membership was even more lucrative. She was sure Kriti was much more powerful than Asara, but lack of knowledge was skewing her judgement. Elemental poisoning was like a ticking bomb that could go off anytime, and screw with her calculations or totally ruin her plans. She had become the perfect embodiment of chaos.

She looked for ways to distract herself and decided to cheer herself up by checking the rewards she had obtained so far. Becoming a champion had its perks, she just had to figure them out.

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Seal of Authority (Legendary Rank, Signet Ring)

User Restriction: Champion of Chaos

A ring that carries the authority of the Goddess of Chaos. You can use this ring to take control of her armies and officiate matters on her behalf. You will receive authority points when you complete tasks to the satisfaction of the Goddess. Failure to perform a task or dissatisfactory performance would deduct points from your tally. You will lose your status as a champion if your score becomes negative. You can choose to refuse a task if it is above or below your task grade. Refusing same grade task incurs Grade x 1000 +1 authority points penalty.

Current points tally: 100/10,000. Accumulate 10,000 points to upgrade to the next level.

Status: Grade 0. Non-Combat, Contract negotiation jobs.

All basic attributes: + 500 x Tier x (1 + Grade)

All hidden attributes: + 500 x Tier x Grade

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Aura of Coercive Pacifism

Makes people agreeable to your ideas and agenda, using illusory yet convincing threats that can be easy avoided by following your suggestions. Skill allows you insights into threats or insecurity faced by the opposite parties to fuel your advantage.

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“How boring!” Rain complained about the futile nature of the champion’s job scope. She took out the spell book to examine it.

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Concentration Drain (Peak Tier 5 Legacy Curse)

Flood a single target with chaos energy, taking away their ability to use skills, spells or combat techniques for 5 seconds. The target will immediately drain 10% [+ Tier Difference] x 3% concentration and carry on draining 5% [+ Tier Difference%] concentration per second for the next 10 seconds.

Requirements: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [75% chaos + 25% illusion].

Cooldown: 8 hours

Cast the spell 80 times with a 100% completion rate to learn it.

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“Holy Chewing Gum! What kind of curse is this?” Rain was suddenly excited. Chaos was meant to disturb their target’s mental fortitude and force them to use more concentration for the same task than usual. This was similar in effect to soul attacks and a lot deadlier than other types of attacks as the target would suffer consequences beyond death. She started examining the other rewards she received so far.

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God’s Own (Legendary Title - Passive)

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Earned gratitude of Barbarian God Augustus)

Those who have earnt gratitude of Ancients are considered as the luckiest souls alive.

Luck: +level x tier

Free Attribute Points: +25 every 5 levels

Free Mastery Points: +50 every 5 levels

All basic attributes: = +Main attribute

All hidden attributes: = +Maximum value of biggest hidden attribute.

Enjoy the same privileges as God’s champion in their lands (Defence: +500%, Maximum attack damage: +250%). Become the harbinger of their wrath in lands of their foes (Defence: +250%, Maximum attack damage: +500%). In neutral territories, enjoy privileges of a Lord (Defence: +250%, Maximum attack damage: +250%)

Attack damage from all learnt spells: +1 minor tier; Curses and Taboo Skills: +2 minor tiers (up to advance tier 6)

Skill completion rate: +6%

Personal guards: 0/10

Additional Passive Skill 1: Divine Aura

All friendly units in the 200 yards circle gain +50 divine resistance. Movement and Attack speed +50%. Regeneration rate +100%.

Additional Passive Skill 2: Might is Right

All friendly units in 500 yards gain 15% attribute bonus and 25% defence.

Additional Active Skill 1: War Cry

Suppress your enemies by 25% in 200 yards circle for next 60 seconds

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Chains of Judgement

Bind all targets in a 50 yards circle with serrated golden chains restraining them, dealing 100% divine damage per second and reducing their defence by 80% for next 5 seconds. Damage doubles for single targets.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3: Second Chance

Resurrects you 5 seconds after death without penalties. HP and Mana are restored to 100%. All skill cooldowns are reset.

Cooldown: 12 hours

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Undying (Epic Title - Passive)

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Earned acknowledgement of God of Thunder)

All attributes (excluding Luck): +5%

Lighting resistance: +500

Additional Passive Ability 1: Thunder Kin

You are granted an honorary recognition as one of thunder kin. You will not be suppressed in God of Thunder’s territories

Additional Passive Ability 2: Undying

Earn 1 free life for every 10 level gain.

Passive abilities cannot be suppressed

Additional Active Skill 1: Lightning Avatar

In God of Thunder’s territories, transform yourself into pure lightning, to attack, defend or restrain targets. You’ll be immune from all damage or control skills in thunder avatar form. All attacks do additional +500% lightning damage.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Number of lives: 1400

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Life Bearer (Epic Title - Passive)

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Earned acknowledgement of Goddess of Life)

All attributes (excluding Luck): +5%

Lighting resistance: +500

Additional Passive Ability 1: Life Bearer

HP regeneration rate +200%.

Additional Passive Skill 1: Life Beacon

Anyone who receives healing from you will have HP regeneration rate doubled for 2 seconds

Additional Active Skill 1: Threads of Life

Sacrifice your HP to heal a target for 100 times the sacrificed HP. You can connect a healing thread to up to 25 targets within 200 yards. Once connected to a target, you can maintain the thread for up to 10 seconds. You can heal a connected target by sacrificing your HP anytime during the thread duration.

Any healing you receive while connected to targets will be multiplied by the number of threads.

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 2 minutes

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	33. Whispers of Antiquities

“I finally have a chance to check out the rewards from Kriti” Rain sighed.

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Soul Spasm (Apex Tier 5 Legacy Curse)

Flood 800x800 yards area with illusory needles. Targets stuck by these needles suffer 650% divine damage, engulfing the target in dark soul fire that does 3 ± Tier Difference% soul damage per second and drains 6 ± Tier Difference% stamina per second for 5 seconds. Those whose soul level is weakened by 25% or more would be incapacitated and unable to move, use skills or spells for next 30 seconds. Every subsequent needle deals twice the divine damage of its predecessor, resetting the soul/stamina drain duration counter to 5 seconds.

Requirements: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [100% illusion + 75% time + 75% space + 100% fire].

Cooldown: 8 hours

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate to learn it.

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Legacy Crystal Ball: Mirror Dimension (Legacy Defensive Technique)

Infuse the essence of illusion, space, time and earth to encase yourself in a spectral dimension that makes you invulnerable for 5 seconds. Attacks on the mirror dimension can be reflected back.

The efficacy of this combat technique depends upon your proficiency level:

Bronze level: Partial spectral dimension created that fully absorbs a single attack before shattering.

Advance Bronze level: Spectral dimension fully created. Absorbs all attacks. Fully absorbs a single invulnerability breaking attack before shattering.

Silver level: Spectral dimension fully created. Absorbs all attacks. Fully absorbs a single attack that ignores or breaks invulnerability before shattering. All normal attacks will be reflected back at 50% damage in a 50 yard cone towards the attacker

Advance Silver level: Spectral dimension fully created. Absorbs all attacks. Fully absorbs a single attack that ignores or breaks invulnerability before shattering. All normal attacks will be reflected back at 80% damage in a 50 yard cone towards the attacker. Invulnerability shattering attack will be reflected at 150% damage in a 100 yard cone towards the attacker.

Gold level and above: Spectral dimension fully created. Absorbs all attacks. Fully absorbs five attacks that ignores or breaks invulnerability before shattering. All normal attacks will be reflected back at 120% damage in a 50 yard cone towards the attacker. Invulnerability defying attacks will be reflected at 250% damage in a 100 yard cone towards the attacker. Allows you to charge the mirror dimension with a single mana element, suppressing attributes related to the element by 50% in a 100 yard radius for 30 seconds.

You cannot move or attack while inside the mirror dimension.

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She opened “Kritikalova’s Legacy Chest” to examine its contents. The first item was a fragmented legendary, affinity growth type, spear shaped staff that exuded a vile energy. It felt like mana around the staff kept disintegrating into nothingness. There were tiny holes throughout the body of the staff and felt cold to touch. Rain had to bind to the staff to reveal its details. She decided to take the risk after thinking about it for a while. Rain’s affinity started pouring into the staff the moment she started the binding process, tipping it over legendary rank by the time she was done.

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Suparna’s Spear (Legendary Rank, Affinity Growth Type, Two Handed Spear/Staff)

Level 150-220

Equipment Requirements: Endurance 5000, Strength 5000, Agility 6500, Intelligence 8000

Class Restrictions: Witch with at least 10 elemental channels (supreme + basic).

Attack Power: (350% of Main Attribute)

All Basic Attributes: + level x tier x 8

Hidden Attributes (excluding luck): + level x tier x 4

Free Attribute Points: + 4 x tier every 5 levels

When equipped:

HP: + 80,000 x level x tier; Mana: + 8,000 x level; Regeneration rate: + 150%

Spell Completion Rate +10%, Spell critical rate +50%;

Attack and Movement Speed: +200%

Ignore Levels +25

All item level requirements reduced by 20 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Terrorising Swipe

Grants a 25% chance to inflict a 10 seconds fear debuff on targets hit by a spear swipe.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Demonic Affinity

+250 resistance to all forms of demonic energies. Damage from attacks fuelled by demonic energy reduced by 50%.

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Void Affinity

Resistance to void +350. All attacks do +100% void damage. Damage or defence from void attacks by the wielder +300%. Incoming void attacks weakened by 40%

Additional Passive Affinity Curse – Reek of Evil

Lose 5% HP the moment you equip the staff. Lose 1% HP and Mana every two seconds you hold the staff. Once equipped you won’t be able to un-equip it for the next 30 seconds.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Circle of Destruction

Use the spear as a javelin to unleash destruction energy on a 500 yards circle. All targets in the area will suffer 1000% destruction damage and 800% evil energy damage.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2 – Lord’s Judgement

Impale a single target up to 100 yards away, causing 1000% lightning damage, 2000% destruction damage and 3000% evil energy damage. The speed of the attack makes it impossible to dodge. Ignores invulnerability.

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Lord’s Punishment

Rain spears of destruction in a 750x750 yard area, dealing 800% destruction damage and 500% evil energy damage for 5 seconds. Any target hit by a spear will be suppressed by 25% and have movement speed reduced by 50% for 30 seconds.

Duration: 5 seconds

Cooldown: 3 hours

Additional Active Skill 4 – Lord’s Phantom

Become one with the staff, temporarily absorbing its power core to transform yourself.

Level +25 (Max 210), Attributes x5, Physique x3, Tier +1 (Max Apex Tier 6), Life rating +3, Movement Speed x2, Attack Speed x2

You lose all attribute bonuses and skills from the staff while you are transformed. The “Passive Affinity Curse – Reek of Evil” would weaken you by 50% for 30 minutes after the duration of transformation is over. Affinity abilities can be used while transformed.

Duration: 120 seconds

Cooldown: 10 hours

Additional Active Affinity Ability (Curse) 1 – Detonate

Explode in a blaze of glory causing 5000% destruction energy damage and 2000% physical damage to a 50 yards area around you, transferring “Passive Affinity Curse – Reek of Evil” to everybody within 500 yards for the next 15 seconds.

Cooldown: None

Additional Active Affinity Ability 2 – Evil Smite

Shoot whips of evil energy onto targets around 50 yards, dealing 2000% evil energy damage to up to 5 targets at once.

Cooldown: 20 seconds

Affinity Growth Rate:

Fragmented Legendary Rank (Initial 150%): Every 50% affinity towards a supreme element or 100% affinity towards a basic element raises staff’s power by 10%.

Legendary Rank (Next 150%): Every 50% affinity towards a supreme element or 100% affinity towards a basic element raises staff’s power by 5%.

Current growth level: 165%. Current rank: Legendary - 15%

Suparna, a demonic witch, was crowned the “Queen of Mischief” by the Lord of Destruction, after she lured an entire division of Evil God’s minions into a phantom labyrinth by using Lord of Destruction’s sword as a bait. War broke out between the two armies and she used the chaos that ensued to steal the sword and swap it with a replica. The evil army managed to overpower the sword’s defenders after making major sacrifices. The defenders, in their final act of defiance, exploded themselves, detonating their destruction cores, wiping every living thing in the vicinity and destroying the replica. Staff was forged using the destruction power drained from the sword and evil energy sourced from bodies of evil minions.

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Bracers of Jeopardy [Fragmented Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Bracers]

Level 100 - 180

Class Restriction: Spell caster classes.

Equipment Requirement: Intelligence 4000, Agility 4500

When equipped:

All attributes (except Luck): +2500

Intelligence: +level x tier x 5; Agility: +level x tier x 4; Vitality: + level x tier x 3

Casting Speed: +level%; Spell Completion Rate +tier%, Spell critical rate +tier x 5%;

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Bountiful Spring

Doubles drop rate from any target you kill. EXP gained from landing final blow +25%.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Chanting Express 

Reduce casting time of spells by half. Instant cast any spell below your tier (up to Tier 5)

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Death Aura

All forms of regeneration cease within 100 yards. Friendly targets have recovery boosted by 50%.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Cutthroat Decapitation

Launch a vicious critical attack on a single target, dealing 500% divine damage and 1000% death damage. Give you a 50% chance to decapitate a same tier or lower target with less than 10% HP. Higher tier targets have a lesser chance.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2 – Pin Drop Silence

Shower needles on a 600x600 yard area, dealing 300% divine damage per hit. Any target hit by the needles will be silenced for the next 60 seconds.

Duration: 25 seconds

Cooldown: 60 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3 – Silent Jeopardy

Flood 800x800 yard area with invisible land mines. Any target that steps on the mine will explode dealing 500% divine damage to a 10 yard circle. Any mines in the coverage area will automatically explode setting up a chain reaction.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Mimi the bandit hunter had a habit of getting into trouble with the oppressive regime of the Beast Empire’s dictator. Known for her questionable ways of vigilante justice, she was a constant thorn in the flesh of the local administration. Once she surrendered herself to claim the amnesty offered to any criminal who could hunt her down. Stung by their own paradox, the city magistrate decided to offer her amnesty in exchange for 5 years of community service. She massacred the magistrate as the first act of community service, clutched these bracers from his body and escaped with her life. The bracers were heavily damaged when she fought the guards on her way out, and can be repaired with a mix of EXP and mana crystals. Requires 8,000,000,000 EXP and 5,000 Mana crystals to upgrade to Fragmented Legendary level 1. Currently (0/12)

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Rain wasn’t keen on swapping out her current bracers even though the new ones had great offensive abilities. The “layered defence” feature of her existing bracers was unmatched by anything she had come across so far. Even though she had control of Andal and all its resources, it was foolish to assume she could mine them without dealing with Asara and her coterie of witches. The next item was an ancient bloodline “Whispers of Antiquities”.

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Whispers of Antiquities (Ancient apex bloodline for Antiquity witches)

Restriction: Antiquity witch

Ancient apex bloodline that has 4 Supreme Attributes of Illusion, Space, Time and Void.

Increases maximum affinity cap by 100% for supreme elements and 200% for basic elements.

Gain 50% affinity for space, time, illusion, void, fire, water, earth and air elements.

Reduces Spell casting time and Cooldown. Increases base spell completion rate by 2%.

Improvements focus on Vitality & Intelligence, followed by Endurance, Agility, and Strength

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	34. Chaotic Indisposition

“Reality Sucks!” Rain was scared after seeing the bloodline. Rain was on cloud nine looking at the awesome rewards, however the prospect of elemental poisoning shot her back to the ground like a blazing meteor. Any other day she would be over the moon after acquiring such a powerful bloodline but today was not that day. Her void channel was damaged and the bloodline would make her condition worse. After class change she would lose the class but fix her void channel, making the bloodline obsolete. The questions haunting her a while ago were back to pester her.

The last item was a lesser legendary spatial ring with enough space to fit all her possessions hundred times over. She immediately equipped it and transferred a lot of items from her bag into it. The loot from the God ranked players was quite abundant too, however there wasn’t much that Rain could use. The equipment she had now was better than her loot.

Several red balls like indicators were flaring up on a huge ceiling. The witch mothers were judiciously studying each occurrence when Rain walked into the room. The goddess demanded her attention before she could inquire what they were up to.

“Care to explain what just happened?” the Goddess asked in an indignant manner.

“Nothing serious. I am merely severely poisoned and can die anytime” Rain replied in an equally cheeky manner. She explained further after noticing confused reactions from the witches. “The Chaos channel damaged the Void channel instead of replacing it. Chaos mana is now in conflict with every other mana element, resulting in elemental poisoning. My entire existence is in chaos now”

“That sounds pretty normal. You are a true champion of chaos! Just stop whining and learn to be yourself” the Goddess mocked Rain’s plight.

“I need to know if this will persist after a class change. I see no point in becoming a Chaos witch if I suddenly die because of a random event” Rain asked with a stern face.

System: You are suffering from elemental poisoning. Clash between Chaos and Death ended in a chaotic mess. Your HP and Mana will be reduced by 10% for the next 24 hours. Your body has started to rot, resulting in putrid fumes, any targets within 25 yards will nauseate and suffer 8% poison debuff.

“Gross. What smell is that? Yuck” the witch mothers yelled encore.

“Point noted” the Goddess said before turning to the witch mothers, “Can you guys take a look and help our friend here?”

Shin Shin and Kushala, who were both immune to poison, approached Rain and held her hands while chanting some purification spells, cleansing off the chaotic side effects. They drew an insignia on the ground and prepared a ritual circle around her. All the witch mothers came together to power the ritual and analyse Rain’s situation. A few minutes later the ritual was over and all had dejected looks on their faces.

“Chaos energy is overflowing into her elemental channels, slowly corrupting them. While a tier upgrade will resolve the problem in the short run, it might create more problems as the clash will only intensify as the channels get stronger” Kushala update the goddess with her findings.

“Strengthening the Void channel will temporarily resolve the issue, however, these elements are in perpetual conflict. There is a chance that the conflict gets more severe in future.” Shin Shin reported.

“What is the impact of a class change into a Chaos witch?” Rain asked

“None. Your primary and secondary channels are too strong to succumb to Chaos even if it becomes the primary channel in the future. Your class change in all likelihood will enable the weaker of your alignment channels into a tertiary channel. You’ll become the sixth witch with a supreme tertiary channel” Shin Shin said.

“So I only need to make sure that all elemental affinity is balanced in future to mitigate the risk? What happens if I absorb void affinity?” Rain asked further.

“You’ll explode! When you change into a Chaos witch, you’ll spend a lot of energy in keeping your void affinity suppressed. Balancing growth of affinities is a good way to go forward but very difficult to maintain in the long run.” Shin Shin replied

“So I need to choose between a chronic disease and a random illness” Rain stated with a dejected look. “Should I still go ahead and absorb this bloodline?” she asked. The question stumped all the witches, giving them something to think about. None of the witches offered any response.

“We’ll know only if you try” Greta answered. She too was curious about the outcome of a bloodline infusion. Rain decided to consume the bloodline and see what happens as a result. It took 30 minutes for the bloodline to be fully absorbed by her body.

System: Increased maximum affinity cap by 100% for Illusion, Space, Time and Void.

System: Increased maximum affinity cap by 200% for Earth, Water, Air, Fire, Darkness, Light, Death, Electric, Magnetic and Life.

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Space mana. Total affinity is now 150%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Time mana. Total affinity is now 219%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Illusion mana. Total affinity is now 227%

System: Void energy channels have been partially repaired.

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Void mana. Total affinity is now 50%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Fire mana. Total affinity is now 150%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Water mana. Total affinity is now 150%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Earth mana. Total affinity is now 150%

System: You have gained 50% affinity with Air mana. Total affinity is now 150%

“I just absorbed void affinity. I haven’t exploded yet” She exclaimed. Her excitement soon vanished as her body heated up, igniting black and yellow flames that rapidly spread throughout her body. Goddess and Kushala promptly responded to the threat by trying to stabilise the Chaos and Void energies respectively. Rain watched how they collectively manipulated the mana and guided them through neutral territory. She was squirming with pain, trying hard to contain her screams, occasionally bursting into deep sighs and furious panting. She started breathing fire a while later and soon was blinded by the golden flames bursting through her eyes. Tottering on the edge of sanity, she couldn’t hold her screams and burst into a violent seizure. The witches had to forcefully restrain her movements while her body twitched and convulsed from pain. Her struggle came to an end with a freezing cold sensation washing over her consciousness.

System: You have lost a life. Balance 1400.

Her ‘Undying’ ability had gained her a life at level 150. She was currently 63% of level 158 after receiving the rewards from Kriti. She had feistily managed to endure the last of the flames and ensured she got something out of this death. When she opened her eyes, everybody was intently looking at her.

System: “Whispers of Antiquities” bloodline has successfully absorbed the essence of Chaos. Increased maximum affinity cap by 100% for Chaos. You have gained 25% affinity with Chaos mana. Total affinity is now 125%. In future you can use the bloodline to freely trade between Chaos and Void affinity at a 50% conversion rate. You have lost 50% affinity with Void mana. Total affinity is now 0%.

System: “Whispers of Antiquities” bloodline has stabilised the effects of elemental poisoning, reducing the risk of poisoning from supreme elements by 80% and from basic elements by 50%. You may still experience poisoning randomly over tier x 10 hours. You’ll be notified 5 seconds before the poisoning is triggered.

System: You have unlocked a new affinity ability “Eyes of Chaos”. Refer to the status panel for details.

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Eyes of Chaos (Affinity Ability Set)

Increases your range of vision to 2000 yards, irrespective of the environment. For every increase in five Levels, all Attributes of player will increase by 5 points, in addition to receiving 10 Free Attribute Points and 10 Free Mastery Points.

Additional Passive Affinity Skill 1 – Piercing Gaze

Direct eye-contact with targets will slow their reaction time by 10% for 5 seconds.

Additional Affinity Skill 1 – Phantom Projection

Project your lifelike image anywhere within your visible range to interact with the environment. Projected image will have visibility of 200 yards and can see invisible units.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Additional Affinity Skill 2 – Chaotic Shock

Blind any target capable of vision and stun them for 5 seconds. A single glare drains 10% of the target's concentration and doubles the concentration cost for skills and spells for 30 seconds. Damage and duration doubles for darkness type or undead creatures.

Cooldown: 5 minutes

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	35. Return to Zero Wing City

Warning bells blared in the gaming cabin. “These flickering pixels are so irritating” she whined, looking at red buffs in the corner of her eye, before logging out. The gruelling torture of absorbing the bloodline had dried up her nutrient fluid supply. Rain felt dizzy when she stepped out of her gaming cabin. The stinging pain in her head and a trippy blurry vision made her gasp for breath. She collapsed on the floor after taking a few steps. She regained consciousness moments later, only to realise that she had lost sensation in most of her body. Refusing to submit to her fleeting consciousness she dragged herself out of the room through sheer power of will. She grabbed the latest batch of S-ranked fluids and only let go after consuming 5 bottles. She fell asleep on the floor, finally embraced the dizzy feeling in her head.

She woke up 6 hours later with a massive headache. She was scared to death by the alternating pangs of heat and cold that shook her thoroughly. She retrieved three more bottles and struggled through the pins and needles sensations on her way to the shower. She found comfort within seconds of sliding into the sizzling hot water bathtub. Sharp biting cold chills arose from deep within her body. She moaned, convulsed and squirmed, enduring the weird sensations, slowly sipping nutrient fluids while trying to relax in the hot tub. She fell asleep in the bathtub amidst the mix of chills, tiredness and relaxing sensations, only to be woken up by grinding sounds 8 hours later.

The water had turned murky and dark. She could have suffocated to death if not for the powerful air flow control and exhaust systems in her shower that were pushed into an overdrive in an attempt to rid the surroundings of the rancid stench. She was aghast at the sight of her body turning reddish blue. A greasy reddish grey gunk was oozing out of her skin. She panicked and furiously scrubbed her body to remove the greasy layer and replenished the tub water. After 10 minutes of multiple scrubbing and flushing, she finally felt relieved by touch of her soft supple skin.

The whole world felt different the moment she stepped out of the bath. She was assaulted by multiple minute sensations. The sound of her heart beat felt louder, the sensation of blood flowing through her veins made her ticklish. She could feel frail air currents bounce against her face, subtly electrifying her hair as they brushed past them. The extra sensory environment made her panic and happy at the same time. She consumed the 10th bottle of nutrient fluids and restocked her gaming cabin. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that the 100,000 gold she had put up for sale at the trading centre had fetched her 750 million credits. She immediately set out to celebrate.

Her good mood was spoilt when she was apprehended by the law enforcement for speeding. She managed to get away scot free since the authorities couldn’t substantiate how it was possible for someone to drive at 300mph in the busy evening traffic without causing any accidents. They immediately ordered an enquiry into the accuracy of the monitoring equipment to save them from embarrassment of detaining a high-profile person. All of them had their minds blown when footage from various security devices along the stretch showed a ghost vehicle, winding through the traffic. None of the cameras had captured anything more than illuminated lines, zipping through the traffic like the superhero movies of the past. The only clear shot revealed how the vehicle in question spun and skid, drifting perfectly into the detention block after a traffic summon was beamed to it, yelling volumes of peerless control and skills of the driver.

Rain wasn’t the least bit worried about their findings. She could get away even if they caught her again for speeding. When she logged back into the game, she found herself in the same war room with everyone fixated on a huge red dot at the massive mirror in front of them.

“Wakeup sleepy head. You have stuff to do and places to go” the Goddess yelled, immediately making Rain aware of her surroundings. “Though I am not supposed to send you into conflict zones yet, I think you would be interested in this one” she said pointing towards a huge army of strange looking monsters advancing inside a forested zone. Rain immediately recognised the tower, about a 500 yards away, that was probably the army’s target.

“Why haven’t the city’s defensive mechanisms intercepted them?” Rain asked in a shocked tone, looking at the monster army closing in on Zero Wing city.

“They are surrounded by a defensive array that shields their life and mana signatures. There might be more to this force than meets the eye as they have been supplemented by demonic, darkness and evil energy. Those elemental towers will not be able to detect them any better than the naked eye. You best hurry before they overpower the city and convert it into a nest. I’m afraid that the battle has already begun” Kriti explained and opened up a portal leading above the city.

The siege had already begun when Rain stepped out of the portal atop Zero Wing city. The tower of 4 elements was raining fire and hail on a column of the enemy forces to the north. Most of the guild upper echelons had been deployed elsewhere. Youlan and was currently in Silverwing City, while Black Flame, Aqua and the most of the main force were either on secret quests or undergoing tier 4 trials. The enemy had been successful in messing with their intelligence and forcing them to redistribute their assets elsewhere. Only Minor Wind, an army of over 50,000 tier 3 players, over a 1000 NPCs and the formidable city defences stood in their way. While the enemy had succeeded in springing a surprise attack, they had been discovered earlier than they hoped to. Hiding from an experienced ranger’s intuition was something they failed to factor into their plan.

He immediately noticed Rain’s arrival and pointed his arrow towards her to greet the new threat. The enemy had already disabled all forms of teleportation, communication and flight in the region and a cloaked figure, fluttering in the air after stepping out of a spatial portal defied all logic. His target mysteriously disappeared and appeared next to him before he could release his arrow.

“Wind it’s me Rain. Stand down and tell what you know about this sudden attack” a soft and calm voice entered his ears, easing his tensions after losing his target. While they weren’t friends they had a pretty good idea of each other’s skills and strengths.

“Rain! Thank god it’s you. We are sorely outnumbered and outmatched. These are the infamous faux saint monsters that the guild leader defeated at Silverwing city. They have launched an unprecedented surprise attack and we can’t even get past their security barrier. The reinforcements from White River city need at least 60 minutes to rush here. We must hold the fort till they arrive.” Minor Wind reported.

“Enemy has four columns, one in each direction. They have 50 high and superior mythic monsters in each column. The columns to the north and the south have 10 tier 5 NPCs each. They are assembling some device to take out the city’s defensive array” Rain shared her findings. “Quickly equip these” she handed him the Fragmented Legendary Bow [Thunder Whisperer] and Fragmented Legendary ranked equipment for rangers [Steaming Shoes] and [Wisp’s Gloves] that she looted from Demon Gurjaden.

“I’ll attack the north and south columns. I need some time to prepare so I need your help to distract them while I sneak behind the enemy lines.” Rain stated. Minor Wind was amazed at the detailed report and even more surprised at how calm she had been while explaining the plan. His jaws dropped at the sight of the equipment. He knew how strong Rain was but had no idea that she had grown by leaps and bounds in a span of a few weeks. Did the presence of tier 5’s mean nothing to her?

“By the way. My identity needs to be a secret. Other than the guild leader nobody needs to know that I was here.” she stated, confusing Wind a bit. There was a gang of witches on her trail. She wanted to finish the job and leave without attracting unwanted attention.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked.

“I need you to focus your attack on the ground in front of the security barrier. Kick up some dirt” Rain stated calmly

“What will that achieve? We’ll only be wasting ammunition like that.” Minor Wind was confused.

“Exactly. Nobody digs a moat at the start of a battle. Let’s confuse them and make them believe we are up to something. That’s all the distraction I need. One more thing. When I give the command, hit the columns to the east and west with everything you got.” Rain calmly stated, confusing Minor Wind further. He had no clue why their full power attack would succeed when a peak tier 5 attack from the tower couldn’t destroy the enemy’s defensive barrier. He however decided to go with her plan since she sounded confident enough to convince him.

All range weaponry was realigned to hit the ground before the enemy lines. The sudden shift in their approach caught the enemy’s attention, confusing them enough to break their formation and move forward to cover the ditch that was quickly taking shape. Rain summoned her doppelganger in the meanwhile and both started casting “Particulate Corrosion” on the energy barrier towards columns to east and west. While the defensive barriers excelled in repelling point of contact attacks, they comprised of elemental mana and could be corroded over time.

Rain and her doppelganger teleported to the rear of the enemy lines to north and south, landing right inside the edge of the protective barrier. The barrier could do little against her godly “quantum teleport”. They managed to avoid detection from the enemy who was still distracted by the moat ahead of them and immediately activated “Camouflage”. “God mode” automatically activated due to proximity with tier 5 NPCs and superior mythic monsters. “Ring of power” boosted them to tier 6. Thanks to the overpowering defensive array, the enemy ranks were packed like sardines. Both Rain’s picked their sweet spots and started dual hexing “Experience Steal” and “Bewitched”.

The silent nature of the hexes ensured nobody was aware of the attack even after the hexes were released on the rear lines, incapacitating them. Both Rains started dual hexing again with “Pins and Needles” and “Life Drain” and released them on the front lines, throwing the enemies in the middle into despair. They were under attack even though the defensive energy barrier was fully intact. It was only when Rain released “Air Spray” and “Energy Drain” that they realised that the enemy was inside the barrier. It was too late for them to act as both Rains had activated “Elemental Awakening” and “Handy Mode” allowing them to wield both the “Voidwalker’s Staff” and “Suparna’s Spear” and wreak havoc from within. They were trapped within their own protective barrier, with a Tier 6 player hunting them at will.

Total Obliteration!

Levitation Slam !

Two Million Pricks!

Power Pace!

Predator Mode!

Gravity Domain!

Void Rampage!

Circle of Destruction!

Lord's Punishment!

Entangling Roots!

Acid Rain!

Mana Burn!

Icicle Shower!

Armageddon!

With nowhere to run, less than 1000 of the mighty 900,000 enemies stood before either of them after 15 seconds of affinity boosted AOE hell. Most of them were still incapacitated due to the hexes and losing HP, Stamina and EXP. “Reek of Evil”, “Blood Fury” and “Predator Mode” had pushed Rain and the doppelganger’s attributes to insane levels. Both of them decided to use different tactics to finish their battles. While the doppelganger used speed and footwork to evade and herd the surviving enemy units into a closer formation, Rain decided to brush up on her melee skills using the spear.

The doppelganger was having more fun, using “Singularity”, “Glue Traps” and occasional “Hexotic Traps” to practise melee defence and further understand the capabilities of her equipment. 15 seconds later, she was surrounded by over 500 enemy units. Realising that the 30 seconds of "Experience Steal" were up she switched to affinity based attacks, scaring the melee units from even stepping within 25 yards of her. Over 1900% affinity and her monstrous damage due to handy mode ensured 60-80 billion damage per whip of the “Whiplash”. She notched up things a bit by invoking “Lord’s Phantom”, boosting her already humongous statistics to insane levels and instantly killing Tier 5s with every hit. 3 seconds later she rounded off all remaining 200 enemies and used “Reaper’s Scythe” to finish them off, leaving the entire 4000 yard southern battlefield glittering with loot. The protective barrier started to fade away slowly after none of the NPCs maintaining it survived.

The real Rain was busy using monsters as test subjects. Almost 20 seconds into the fight, she was forced to use “Realm Creation Stone” to turn on the “Experience Bank”. She had already reached level 200 thanks to the 3 Trillion EXP stolen using both “Experience Steal” hexes that had trapped 400-500 high level targets each and “Reaper’s Share” that awarded her 20% extra EXP per kill. She still had over 350 enemies to kill by the time the doppelganger had finished. She immediately swapped places with it, unleashing a humongous phantom monstrosity onto her enemies. She adjusted her position and shot lightning bolts at both east and west defensive barriers, causing them to crumble into flaky bits and dissipate. She switched “Suparna’s Spear” with “Staff of Neverwinter” to escape the effects of “Reek of Evil” before informing Minor Wind to switch targets.


	36. Eastern Continent Shaken

“Wind! Now!” she yelled on her communicator, causing huge eruptions from the city walls. The attacks teared into the eastern and western columns of the enemy. Rain used a few seconds to pump 3,141,591,328,500 EXP into the “Voidwalker’s Staff” upgrading it to legendary rank and reducing her level back to 68% of level 155. She used the legendary staff to summon two Tier 5, level 180 Void Serpents, Ferocious Beasts. She used all her summon spells, bound them with an “Elemental Chain Link” and unleashed them on western column.

The doppelganger finished slaying her enemies 5 seconds later and joined the rest of the summoned creatures on the western front. She summoned a Tier 5 adult Void Dragon, a host of elementals and guardians and used “Elemental Chain Link” on everyone including herself and charged into the battlefield. The city defenders cheered when they saw a monstrous phantom and a menacing adult dragon join the fight. The 500,000 strong monster army, including the 50 high and superior mythic monsters and a few Tier 5 NPCs were slain within the next 70 seconds.

With only 3 seconds of the doppelganger’s duration remaining, she decided to try something drastic. She activated “Teleprompt” and zoomed through the entire width of Zero Wing city. One second later she arrived at the centre of the heavily fortified monster army, forcing them to stop assaulting the city walls and focus on her instead. Meanwhile Rain had swapped into “Bracers of Jeopardy” and cast “Pin Drop Silence” on the enemy casters and “Silent Jeopardy” in the area surrounding the doppelganger. A huge explosion ripped through the enemy lines when they abandoned all defences, to rid the doppelganger of its last 1% HP.

“Detonate” had exceeded Rain’s expectations. She watched a mushroom cloud rise 500 yards from the eastern wall. Even though the effective damage range was only 50 yards, the shock waves from the impact had flung the mythic monsters into the air, sending them crashing into the defensive barrier, which shook violently for 5 seconds before stabilising. Even the tier 3 defenders on city walls were not spared and they lost over 50% to 80% HP, flying off the walls and crashing into the structures inside the city. Over 100,000 tier 2 defenders on the eastern wall were not so lucky and died before their bodies hit the ground. Over 300,000 enemy units near the impact zone were pulverised into a fleshy and bloody mess. The 800 odd who crashed into the defensive barrier lost 70%-80% HP and were stunned for 15 seconds.

“I leave those for your target practise” Rain pointed to Minor Wind before flying off to hunt the rest of the monster army. The army of summoned creatures followed her command, quickly slaying those who were heavily encumbered and disoriented by the high power blast. She rushed over to the 600 yard deep lava pool the explosion left behind and sealed the 1000 yards area using “Spatial Barrier”. 30 seconds later the void serpents and the elementals had finished off all the stragglers.

The sealing around Zero Wing city disintegrated slowly, allowing communications and teleportation facilities to resume. The thoroughly mesmerized crowd within the city and the depressed spies were furiously uploading battle videos involving the humongous phantom, a mighty dragon, couple of serpents, scores of elementals and the “feared” mammoth faux saint monster army on the official forum.

“Muscle to rubble in 120 seconds”

“Do they ever learn? How thick are Zero Wing’s enemies?”

“Surprise attack surprises attackers who wanted their attack to be a surprise”

“Mysterious lady in black wipes the floor with over 1 million faux saint monsters”

“Black Flame is history! Death Reaper Lady with a pet Black Dragon is the new mystery”

. . .

“I am willing to pay 50,000 gold for a tower top view of the next attack on any Zero Wing city or town”

“It was over before I could finish taking a dump. Curse my unlucky stars”

“Has Zero Wing played its final trump card yet?”

“Zero Wing is deeper than the misery it inflicts on its enemies. Masochists keep coming back for more”

. . .

None of them realised that the threat was much bigger than it appeared. News of the death of over 20 Tier 5 NPC within 45 seconds would have shaken the entire continent, yet nobody was aware of the battles to the north and south of the city. Those who knew were silenced by their superiors out of fear of glorifying Zero Wing further. All their investments in this battle and subsequent capture of the city were down the drain.

“All done. I need lots of magic crystals to upgrade my stuff. You have some to spare?” Rain asked Wind.

“How many do you need?”

“2 million!” Rain said in a sheepish tone. She knew it was a ridiculous amount to ask for.

“Wait! That’s cheaper than 1 magic crystal per head? Hahaha. Take these 1 million crystals. I pass you another million within a week”. Wind’s statement had surprised Rain. When did the guild build up such a huge inventory of magic crystals?

“You better get going before people start sniffing your identity. Some VIP’s are here for a report” Wind stated, pointing at Yuan Tiexin who had just walked out of the teleportation hall along with Purple Jade and Liang Jing. Rain immediately blinked away to the privacy of her personal quarters in the city. Minor Wind instructed the NPCs to organise the scavenging teams to collect the loot. With more and more guild members arriving over time, the NPC’s were having an easier time manning the teams and allocating them their collection areas.

“You in-charge here? What happened here?” The forever impatient Yuan Tiexin looked like a tamed puppy. Nothing about Zero Wing ever made sense to him. He would have dismissed the attack as hearsay if not for the trails of bodies and glittering loot everywhere. This guild “without any foundations” was so incredibly deep that their victory in a war, however ridiculous, was a foregone conclusion. He had already dismissed all the intelligence reports about the war after looking at huge stashes of loot to the north and south. All the estimates of a million monster army were laughable.

“Yes. I am Minor Wind. Elder Yuan to what do I owe this pleasure”. The response shook Yuan Tiexin from his innocuous gaze at the spoils of war. He was further amazed by the unmistakable glow of fragmented legendary items the ranger wielded. He suspected Zero Wing to have secret channels for acquisition of such items.

“You managed to defeat the faux saint army by yourselves?” Yuan Tiexin was having trouble speaking coherently. The scale of the war had sent shivers down his spine.

“We had help from a mysterious passing expert. She only charged us 2 million magic crystals for her assistance” Minor Wind stated casually with a subdued smile.

“2 million magic crystals? How are we going to find so many?” Liang Jing cut in and sneaked a glare at Wind to tell him to shut up. Even though 2 million magic crystals was a gettable target for the guild, there was no reason to advertise it.

“She has given us 15 days to gather the amount. You guys should have arrived earlier. She left not long ago” Minor Wind clarified. He fully understood her concerns and realised the slip he made a while ago.

“I’m sure your contract has alternate payment methods as well” Yuan Tiexin stated, trying to dig for more information.

“No contract was signed. She stated her demands. I agreed. She finished the job, gave a deadline and disappeared. All of us know the consequences of double crossing such a powerful existence” Minor Wind stated. “I’m sure we can sell items through Candlelight to arrange for the amount. No worries. I’ll discuss this with Guild Leader personally”

“Will it be possible to meet this expert when she shows up for collection?” Yuan Tiexin hadn’t given up.

“She is not coming back. I have a transaction code to do a 1 time transfer of 2 million magic crystals through the trading platform. I think this expert is very concerned about her privacy. I’d suggest not to poke our heads into it since we might infuriate her. She might visit us if we fail to deliver. I am sure none of us want that to happen” Minor Wind skilfully avoided the queries. The visitors left on a field trip to assess the damage to the city defensive structures and estimate the repair costs.

Despite their best efforts, news of a mysterious expert charging 2 million magic crystals to slay the monsters spread over the forums. Many argued that the expert had a keen business sense to charge such insane rates for a task she most likely was already contracted to do. Everybody knew that she arrived through a spatial portal a while after the battle started, hence there was no point in praising Zero Wing for a mere coincidental victory.

“People don’t just materialise out of thin air. She must have been sent there on a quest to slay the faux saint monsters and investigate their origin.”

“I am willing to offer 1 billion credits for that awesome combat black dragon mount. Negotiable”

“Why is Zero Wing always so lucky? I wish I had half of their luck.”

The conference rooms of all major powers in the eastern continent were bustling with activity. The reassessment of the loot put the monster numbers to around 3 million. 2 million of those didn’t even get a chance to show up. They were slain even before the battle began. Everybody was having trouble wrapping their heads around these events. Nobody knew the identity of the player responsible for the chaos.


	37. Bitter Truths and Godly Cannons

While most onlookers were going gaga over defeat of the faux saint monsters, a shady and cloaked group of people on the top floor of a fancy restaurant in Zero Wing city were cracking their heads on how almost 3 million monsters were wiped out in a matter of minutes. They were finding it extremely difficult to believe that armies to the north and south were wiped out even before the battle started.

“This was supposed to be our moment of glory. How long will I have to wait to wipe that smirk off Black Flame’s face?” said a cloaked, male youth radiating dense darkness energy.

“Is that all you care about? Demon God is going to flay us alive for losing the 12 death fire cannons. He even dispatched 24 Tier 5 NPCs to guard his prized assets” an assassin youth with two short swords flared up.

“Calm down Sandstorm. Safeguarding the cannons wasn’t our job. It’s our defeat, though it isn’t Zero Wing’s victory. These faux saints are definitely capturing attention of some other worldly powers that we are not aware of. That cloaked player must have been at least Tier 5 to achieve what she did. I see hope in our failure. There is someone stronger than Black Flame and kills for money. We just need to find this expert and buy her loyalties” Cold Shadow’s words suddenly lightened the atmosphere. They had grown accustomed to looking up to her to find opportunities even in tough times.

“Even Zero Wing does not know how to contact her. She’ll definitely show up if we somehow ensure that Zero Wing cannot pay up” said a cloaked, male youth radiating dense demonic energy.

“That would be stupid. Their partners have a mana vein and can easily supply the necessary magic crystals if needed. We have to find another way” a grumpy middle aged ranger interjected.

“Nine Dragons Emperor is correct. Besides it's rather simple to lure that lady to come out of the shadows. It’s easy to deduce that she is in Star Moon Kingdom for the next 15 days and only values magic crystals. Besides, if our intelligence is correct she would respond if the threat of faux saint monsters is revealed. Our spies in the scavenging teams have noted missing saint energy crystals and energy cores from the battlefield. She is definitely the one collecting them, and was likely sent here for that purpose”

“What are you suggesting vice guild leader Cold Shadow” a youth reeking of evil energy spoke up.

“We attack the city again and openly. Only a lure of a huge harvest will attract her attention”

“Preposterous! You think these faux saints grow on trees? We have already sacrificed 5 million tier 3 players and 15 million tier 2 players permanently to create the army that attacked Zero Wing city. The dark world has run out of willing sacrifices, Demon Heart has run out of sacrifices. Are you willing to provide sacrifices from Mythology just to lure some expert out?” a robust looking man spoke in a domineering voice.

“We must do what needs to be done when push comes to shove! We will fill up your ranks in future however, we need you to tap into your reserves and prepare an army within the next 15 day. There is no other way for this strategy to work” Cold Shadow asserted with a deep sigh. Her words pushed the group into a cacophony of murmurs.

“Good. Then put your money where your mouth is. This is the orb you passed me a long while ago. Fill it up with sacrifices of 10 million tier 3 players and 40 million tier 2 players. We will meet here again in a weeks’ time to work on the lure” a robust looking man looked Cold Shadow squarely in the eyes before passing her the demon god’s orb. She took the orb and left the restaurant with her team.

“Guild leader Dawn Dominance, what’s on your mind?” the cloaked youth asked.

“I think it’s time to introduce Saints to the western continent. The demonic environment might provide the impetus needed for breakthrough to the next level. What do you think vice leader Flaming Light?”

“I think it’s time to seek our own path instead of becoming Mythology’s puppets. We have only lost ground since we partnered with them, while they reap all the benefits and resources. No matter how we look at it Black Flame defeated us fairly, using his own strengths. Mythology is a backstabber, promising roses while delivering thorns. It’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine.” Flaming Light agreed with Dawn Dominance on the fact that they were just cannon fodder for Mythology and it was time to pay them back in kind. “But what about this mysterious lady?” he asked

“She should have received 200 soul marks after killing the superior mythics. Yet we cannot track any of the markers. She either came prepared, or is immune to soul attacks. What interests me most is that she detonated herself instead of being slain. That must have been an origin spell to instantly kill hundreds of thousands of saint monsters. It felt like she wanted them to drain her HP below 1% to maximise the impact. Only the Bloodboil beasts we encountered on the dark rift had such capabilities”

“Or it could be a doppelganger. I am more surprised by the fact that she used a scythe and a spear, both two handed weapons, in a mediocre way and still instantly killed the 2 NPCs guarding the cannon before shredding it. To a martial artist like myself, those attack moves were outright stupid, yet the damage they dealt was many times more than the best combat technique I could execute. She is definitely mysterious in more ways than one”

. . . .

While everyone was lamenting about the death fire cannons and energy crystals, nobody knew that Rain had actually exchanged 2,000,000 energy crystals for 2 million mana crystals and 1 million GCP. The energy cores were exchanged for 5000 GCP each. Her fragmented legendary spatial ring had run out of space after collecting 10 death fire cannons from north and south columns and had to destroy the ones in east and west, in full public view, to create an impression that all of them were destroyed. The reason she swapped places with her doppelganger was precisely to store the cannons before the defensive array fully dissipated. The doppelganger had indeed collected 200 soul marks, but her detonation had melted the soul magic arrays, converting them into soul food for the real body.

When the summoned forces engaged with the faux saint monsters on the western front, Rain used “Teleprompt” and cast “Invisibility” before picking the entire southern battlefield clean of energy crystals and cores. She then ran across to the northern battlefield, through the eastern side to clean it up. Her movement boost had expired midway during her adventure in the north. “Singularity” allowed her to leave multiple invisible illusory copies on the eastern side, allowing her to swap places with one such copy just before it expired. 30 seconds later she had finished her quota of energy crystals.

Rain felt stoned by the extra sensory soul state after absorbing so many soul marks and was itching to look for trouble. She was giggling incessantly while throwing magic crystals at imaginary targets. Even though she could feel her soul level rising, the amount of soul stimulants she had ingested had intoxicated her. If not for her ridiculous 227% illusion affinity her head would have exploded and soul shattered due to the excessive stimulation. After complaining loudly of having nothing fun to do, she lazed on the cushions in her room while singing to her legendary staff.

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Voidwalker’s Staff (Legendary Rank, Growth Type, Two Handed Staff)

Level 150-220

Equipment Requirements: Endurance 4200, Strength 4500, Agility 6000, Intelligence 6600

Class Restrictions: Tier 4 or above Caster Type

Attack Power: (350% of Main Attribute)

All Basic Attributes: + level x tier x 10

Hidden Attributes (excluding luck): + level x tier x 8

Free Attribute Points: + 5 x tier every 5 levels

Main Attribute: +5 per level increment

When equipped:

Strength, Endurance and Vitality +80%, Agility and Intelligence +150%

Hidden attributes +75%

Casting speed +75%, Spell Completion Rate +12%, Spell critical rate +80%;

Ignore Levels +30

All item level requirements reduced by 25 Levels.

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Mana Surge

Increases wielder’s Mana capacity by 150%. Decreases mana consumption by 50%

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Darkness Affinity

Resistance to darkness +800. All attacks do 500% darkness damage. Damage or defence from darkness spells by the wielder +800%. Incoming darkness attacks weakened by 50%

Additional Passive Skill 3 – Void Affinity

Resistance to void +300. All attacks do 100% void damage. Damage or defence from void attacks by the wielder +400%. Incoming void attacks weakened by 40%

Additional Passive Affinity Ability 1 – Void’s Blessing

Fortitude increases by 1%, Concentration increases by 2%, Physique increases by 3% and Stamina increases by 4% and for every person or monster within 100 yards. Friendly units receive a boost of +2% Concentration and +3% Stamina when in range.

Additional Passive Affinity Ability 2 – Void Stalker

Movement Speed +500%, +Stealth when chasing a target running away from you. Ability is lost if you attack or target escapes your sight.

Additional Active Skill 1 – Summon Voidling

Summons 2 random creatures from the void, +2 minor tiers, 25 levels higher (up to apex Tier 5 / Level 200), and life rating +tier, to aid you for 3 hours

Cooldown: 1 hour

Additional Active Skill 2 – Void’s Echo

Fully nullify damage from a single attack. The attack is absorbed and rebounded to the attacker with 200% of original damage, +200% void damage and +200% darkness damage

Cooldown: 10 seconds

Additional Active Skill 3 – Void Rampage

Summon up to a maximum of 500 void blades. Every void blade costs 100 mana and carries strength equal to 300% of the wielder's maximum damage and does additional 300% darkness damage.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2.5 hours

Additional Active Skill 4 – Void Caller

Fill yourself with the energy of the void raising your attributes:

Level +25 (Max 210), Attributes x10, Physique x4, Tier +1 +25% (Max peak tier 6), Life rating +tier, Movement Speed x5

Duration: 120 seconds

Cooldown: 10 hours

Additional Active Skill 5 – Void Domain

Automatically summon random creatures from the void to fight targets. Summon one creature per 300 yards radius. Each creature up to 10 levels higher (Max level 200) and 1 tier below the wielder (Max peak tier 5) and lasts for 90 seconds.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 3 hours

Additional Active Affinity Ability 1 – Void Fire

Adds +100% void fire splash damage to all attacks. Ignores all defences and ignites the target for 5 seconds dealing 100% void damage per second. If five attacks land on the same place, the ignited area explodes dealing +2000% void damage. The targets explode if they die while on fire and suffer 3 times the regular death penalty and reduced attributes for next 3 days.

Duration: 180 seconds

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Additional Active Affinity Ability 2 – Demonify

Basic attributes x tier x 2; Hidden attributes x tier; Damage and Defence + 250%; +1 minor tier; Life Rating +1

Duration: 10 minutes

Cooldown: 10 hours

This staff was forged by Grandmaster Magician Chewcabra in collaboration with Famed Smith Guzzleworth. They made grave miscalculations during the forging process as both forgers used different scales for measurement. This scythe shaped staff was a result of various calibration errors and unbalanced magic arrays. The lavish legendary ingredients used to make this staff and its magic circuits are still intact and can be balanced by channelling enough experience through it.

Requires 2,800,620,625,300 EXP to upgrade to legendary level 1. Currently (0/7)

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	38. Guild Leader’s Secret Girlfriend

Rain was too high to fully understand the consequences of her actions. She had been reading the details of her legendary staff aloud, yelling the name of each skill while trying to cast them. She would have burnt her private house down if not for her attack skills being on cooldown.

“Experience whore! You are such an experience whore. Are you ever tired of asking for more?” she threw the staff away, sending it crashing against the wall, causing the structure to crack.

“Am I drunk or the cushion shrunk?” Rain had activated both “Void Caller” and “Demonify” causing her body to expand four times her regular size. Her whimsical musing and rampage was stalled by the sound of the communicator ringing. 

“Hee Haw Cowboy! Did you miss me already?” Rain blabbered, thoroughly stunning Minor Wind with her size and antics.

“Vice leader Snow is here and she is thoroughly pissed. Could you come over and calm her down?”

“What did I ever do to her?”

“She is inquiring about the million magic crystals you exchanged. I tried to pacify her but she insists that the guilds’ needs are bigger than its members. I am unable to convince her further without revealing the truth. Can you help me out? Please!”

“Why does the guild need magic crystals so urgently?”

“I had to make up a story about paying an external expert 2 million magic crystals to save us from the invasion. She feels we should complete this transaction as soon as possible. She noticed you withdrew 1 million crystals and got pissed” Minor Wind made a pitiful sorry face causing Rain to erupt into laughter. He felt shivers down his spine when the same ringing laughter suddenly echoed from behind him. He didn’t realise that Rain had teleported directly to the giant table in the meeting room, stunning not just him but Snow and Liang Jing as well who were seated alongside the table. A 7 yard long super gorgeous laughing behemoth had suddenly appeared before them.

“Glad you could join us Rain” Snow spoke softly, trying to calm herself.

“Vice leader. She is an imposter. Her name is ‘Celetrix Meek’” Liang Jing who didn’t know Rain well, couldn’t recognise her due to “Ambiguity” being active.

“Oh. I see a ‘Ming Shan’ in front of me. But don’t worry she is Rain. Just a giant version of her” Snow stated.

“Greetings Vice Leader Snow. Why did you wish to see me?” Rain spoke gibberish, giggling at Liang Jing’s confused looks, while pointing fingers at her.

“It seems you have been through a lot. How did you manage to get so drunk?” Snow asked. She suspected something was amiss and Minor Wind’s body language confirmed her suspicions.

“Nah. I feel like I am on top of the world. Damn those monsters. I can’t even think straight right now”

“What monsters?”

“Those big burly monsters I killed a while ago. Oooohh! My head hurts!”

“Rain, you need to logout right now. Do it before you hurt yourself any further. Go get some rest while the headache goes away” Snow tried to comfort her.

“Ok. I see you guys later” Rain said before logging out.

“You! Start talking!” Snow bellowed at Minor Wind, causing him to shudder involuntarily. Since Rain had already set the ball rolling there was no further reason to keep secrets. Wind explained the series of events since the start of the invasion. He wasn’t sure why her identity had to be kept a secret but Snow understood fairly well that it had to be done nonetheless. Liang Jing was stunned to an extent that Snow had to shake her to pull her out of her frozen visage. The truth was more ridiculous than the ‘expert’ theory.

“The guild leader told me that he was in a super sensitive state for 2 days after killing 1 faux saint mythic. She killed 200! Will she be okay?” Liang Jing blurted in bewilderment. She immediately proceeded to slap herself tightly after realising that she had let out a secret.

“You can thank the guild leader later for randomizing this room. Remember to keep your calm over such matters in future” Snow reprimanded Liang Jing and turned to Wind “Locate her profile data and personally deliver 5 S-ranked nutrient fluids to her. I am hoping they’ll be sufficient”

“We don’t have access to her profile. Guild leader had over 20 profiles frozen from guild access. She is among them. Frankly we never knew her contact details or real life identity even before those files were frozen. For a long time we suspected that Rain was the guild leader’s secret girlfriend, however it was all hogwash. ” Wind reported with an amused look

“So we know nothing about her?” Snow was flabbergasted

“Nothing at all. She was introduced to us as the guild leader’s friend who was a casual gamer but her rise in God’s Domain is comparable to the guild leader himself. Even though she never hangs out with the guild members she has always been among the top 10 GCP holders. Today she is number 3. Only the guild leader and yourself, are ahead of her.”

“How many of such people do we have in the guild?”

“Only 2. Rain and her friend Bamboo. They signed up together. Guild leader gave them a special waiver from profile verification, however they had to go through everything else like the rest of us. Both are reserve core members and among the top 10 in their classes”

“So she didn’t receive the priority training and support like the rest of the main force. Why would that imply that she was the guild leader’s girlfriend?”

“She always interacted with the guild leader like an equal. It felt like they knew each other long enough to refer to each other by their names. She always called him ‘Ye Feng’. Initially some of us got very furious over her lack of respect for the guild leader, but he acted like it was normal. Boss Blackie has known the guild leader far longer than any of us, yet he was clueless about her identity. So we deduced that she must be his childhood friend, given her peerless beauty that quickly mutated into a secret girlfriend. However, guild leader has never been out on a date for the last one year. No beauty came looking for him either.”

“Interesting! It’s good to learn that such a mysterious expert is on our side. All the loot from today should rightly be her GCP, but I fear it might trigger speculations. Can we reward her with equipment instead?”

“Hahaha. You see these equipment? She gave them to me today. Her equipment is probably better than yours, vice guild leader” Minor Wind taunted Gentle Snow.

“And you shamelessly kept them! You are despicable”

“I meant to return these to her later. I swear. Never got a chance to do so.”

“Alright. We are done here. Make sure not a word of it leaks. I’ll have your heads if it does. Seal the room until she wakes up. Let’s hope she can overcome this” Snow commanded before leaving the room. Liang Jing followed closely behind her. She was having a massive headache from learning so much about the guild today. Despite having seamless access to every secret of the guild, she still felt like a stranger. Every time she thought she had a grasp of the guild’s expanses, she would be hit by a sledge hammer. Until today it was Black Flame holding that hammer. Now a nameless expert had joined the party. One that was rumoured to be his non-existent girlfriend.

While the spies couldn’t figure out the discussions inside, they were patiently watching the door being sealed under Minor Wind’s observation. 3 people entered, 3 people left. What were they hiding inside the room? None without a godly teleportation method like Rain could sneak a peek. 20 minutes later the mystery deepened when faint flashes of light could be seen coming out of the room. A heavy mental oppression flooded the surroundings putting the guards as well as the spies to sleep. 10 minutes later a commotion had broken outside the room. When Wind rushed over to find a host of people asleep in the surroundings, he intuitively added them to his secret watch list. These people had no purpose to hang around here. He was relieved to find the seal intact. When the door opened, he held back on his shock at Rain’s disappearance. While it was entirely possible that she teleported out, it couldn’t have knocked out the players in the surrounding area. When the guards woke up after 4 hours, they were too lethargic and needed rejuvenation before they could recover from their semi-comatose state.


	39. X

Rain was happy to have logged out when she did. The super sensory state within the game was negatively impacting her mental state. She felt thoroughly drained and tired and decided to get out of her house and grab some food. She put on a fleece hoodie and rode her bicycle towards a night joint that served her favourite dessert. The atmosphere at the food joint was surprisingly alive. Everyone was busy discussing the reaper that had shown up over Zero Wing city. Rain was enjoying the chaos she had caused while sipping tea and waiting for food to arrive. She was pleasantly surprised by her immensely improved hearing after the hefty nutrient detox session. She was mischievously snooping from table to table relishing their gossips, especially how various bigwigs were trying to reach out to the reaper to enlist her help to teach Black Flame a lesson and wresting control of Stone Forest city from Zero Wing. Lots of business opportunities were suddenly knocking at her door and she could literally mint money through various fixed matches as long as her identity wasn’t compromised. Her revelry came to an end when she started snooping over a shady looking hooded group at a dimly lit corner of the joint.

“There would be 3 silver ranked guards protecting the package at all times. I think we should expect at least 3 more guards stealthily monitoring the area” a burly youth stated

“The intel stated 3 silver guards and full aerial surveillance. They might adjust themselves into 2+1 configuration to lower their visibility and value perception. One silver guard is enough to raise a lot of eyebrows. They would be smart enough not to attract attention towards themselves” an athletic looking woman seated opposite him stated.

“Just stick to the plan and we’ll be alright” a petite woman stated in a charming voice. Rain sensed a threat to her life merely listening to the woman. It felt like this woman, codenamed ‘X’, could wipe the floor with everyone in the food joint without breaking a sweat. X went on to distribute tasks to everybody in the team, bringing them up to speed with the plan. They were stealing a shipment from the Green God company and always referred to it as ‘package’. Rain was mesmerised by the depth of planning and technological leverage needed to execute heists. She was struggling to decide whether to inform the authorities or relish the action in secret. She was shocked by the activity on a nearby table after the shady group left.

“Boss the sisters are making a swoop. We jackals just need to steal their kill” a frail looking hooded youth was reporting on his phone. She wasn’t surprised at someone else snooping over their plan, but the fact that the person had a crest pinned to his belt, indicating his affiliation to the local law enforcement. She felt deeply triggered to catch them red handed and expose these bad apples on national media. In her assessment rotten public servants were a bigger threat to society than high end thieves.

Rain was curious enough to ponder over the details of X’s plan. She carefully reminisced every word that woman spoke. Overall it was a feasible plan. Some steps were exceptionally detailed while others were not. There were some parts that were critical and had to be performed to perfection while other parts offered more leeway. She finished her food, paid the bill and set off on her way back home. She was trying to deduce every possible outcome on the way. She was laughing like a maniac by the time she reached home.

“That woman is a freaking genius! There is no way I am missing any part of it” she mumbled while pumping her fists. Knowledge was power and power was meant to be abused.

A wall projection displayed the ‘would be’ crime scene in its full glory. A clock sat next to it counting down from 18 hours to the time of heist. She was sure that quite a few people were analysing the same venue currently and planning their hand. While it was possible for more than one party to reveal themselves, two parties choosing the same spot was likely a coincidence. Attempting a heist in the most secure section of the city was sufficient to drive away competition.

X had chosen this section for an entirely different reason. This was the only stretch where aerial surveillance was legally prohibited. It wasn’t a concern since law enforcement closely monitored every activity on this stretch. X’s team planned to intercept the van carrying the ‘package’ and ride it out of the area, after knocking out the guards and taking their place. The sewage channel running 20 feet below was meant to be the escape route for the burly youth who would escape with the ‘package’. It was a simple plan, to be executed with absolute precision and in full view of the law enforcement.

Rain called this plan a genius since she had already deduced that X was aware of the rogue cop snooping on them. X knew from experience that the cops would take advantage of the heist to maximize their profits rather than take the standard 20% cut. Burly guy was just a bait. His job was simply to buy X’s team time to escape. There was no way he could escape without being apprehended. She was certain that the law enforcement would start a cover up even before the incident occurred to distance themselves from lapses in their investigation. They had many ways to prepare for the cover up even before the crime. “Camera room power outage”, “Standard maintenance notice”, “Defect rectification form”, “Personnel calling in sick” etc. were some of the standard alibis. They had become her accomplices without realising it. A security bulletin issued an hour before the crime would absolve them of their wrong doings while giving little time for the delivery team to plan an alternate route. This route was still a lot safer than any alternatives they could fathom. X knew very well that ‘surprise’ and silver rank security never lived in the same zip code. These personnel were thoroughly trained and were required to be at the highest alert all times during their deployment. The only missing piece was their actual escape route and Rain was starting to have some ideas about it.

“Are you going to continue hiding in the shadows or come over and explain your escape plan?” Rain spoke softly to the giant wall projection.

“So you discovered me already. Seems I need to brush upon my stealth skills. Since you discovered my plans I have no choice but to kill you” a voice responded.

“Really? Don’t you know my cousin X will find you and kill you if you as much as scratch me” Rain spoke with a smile on her face.

“Damn! How did you know it’s me? Seriously, why are you trying to get involved in affairs you don’t understand? Did you know how close you were to getting killed just now?” X replied

“I could smell your perfume from miles away. Sis you need a makeover if you are going to maintain this fake identity”

“And why are you still riding that toy bicycle around? Trying to be Cinderella or something?”

“Well you need to talk to the person who gave me that bicycle. Not my fault if they never noticed that I have grown up”

“You really have to talk back to me like it’s my fault? Clearly you are the one keeping secrets. When did you become so good at martial arts?”

“Martial arts? You are so wrong! I am clean for 10 years now”

“Says the owner of a domain. Don’t you try to belittle something I fought so hard to attain?”

“Oh so this is a domain! Well whatever it is, it feels really good. I just started having these enhanced sensations. I was about to consult a physician to check if my nerves are acting up. So are you coming in or we are doing this social distancing thing from now on?” Rain asked. She was meeting her cousin after a few years, it was high time they caught up.

X had tears in her eyes as she rushed in and gave Rain a tight hug. “My little sister has grown up into such an alluring beauty. I am so happy to see you”. They spent a fair bit of time talking about each other before moving on to more serious topics.

“Why are you trying to get yourself into such a mess? Don’t you know stealing from Green God Company is going to ruffle a lot of feathers? They will issue contracts with your name on them” Rain asked worriedly.

“Don’t have to worry about that. I am running out of options in my hunt and ruffling feathers is exactly what I need right now. At least I’ll be famous for a short while” X replied, the look of determination in her voice spoke volumes of her hunger to achieve her goals.

“What exactly is that ‘package’?” Rain was curious.

“It’s best for you to not know. Don’t get involved with this one. It’s a one way ticket to hell”

“I am willing to buy if you are stealing nutrient fluids. You’ll have to sell them anyway unless you have other plans for them. If they don’t catch you stealing they’ll definitely catch you selling”

“And what will you do with them? I am not stealing 1 or 2 bottles you know”

“I was thinking 1000. Can you get me that many?” Rain’s serious response made X freeze. She knew Rain wasn’t kidding. Lying to a domain expert was exceptionally difficult, since it required absolute control over the body. Was it the same little sister she knew? Did she have a fake identity too?

“We are pinching 1000 life potions. 200 go to the cops to stay off our back and the rest will be split evenly between me and our sponsor. I plan to keep 100 for myself and sell off the other 300 over time. Current black market value hovers around 15 million credits per bottle. You sure you can purchase that many?” X’s revelation shocked Rain. She had yet to get her hands on life potions.

“You need the amount in credits or I can pay you in alternative currency? Like God’s Domain gold coins?” Rain asked sincerely, astonishing X further. She had no idea Rain was loaded.

“I’ll take gold coins any day. A high value credit transaction would raise eyebrows anyway”

“Let’s get an instalment plan working. Each life potion would roughly be 2000 gold coins. I can take in 50 bottles per week. I just sold a lot of gold coins. I could have bought 100 for a start otherwise.”

“Works for me. I’d say go with 25 per week. I’ll have to find something to sell to you to avoid suspicion”

“What’s your class? Are you part of any guild? You open to trade equipment for life potions?”

“I’m a level 125 Tier 3 berserker. I have my own dark adventure team in the western continent. We are really being pushed to the edge by a super-guild. I’m sure you heard about Miracle” X sighed, she really needed gold coins to upgrade or relocate.

“Which weapon suits you the most?”

“I am good with spear and swords”

“How does a legendary spear sound to you?” Rain’s question froze X, her jaws wide open, staring at Rain in disbelief. Was she really her cousin? “I must inform you that you will only be able to use it at level 140, unless you have something to lower the equipment requirements”

“I want to write you off as a fraudster right now, but I am sure you are not one. Nobody has a legendary weapon in the whole of the God’s Domain at the moment. Why are you doing this to me?”

“That’s because anyone who reveals possession of one will become a living target. It’s a curse to hold a legendary weapon. You have to make sure even your adventure team does not know this secret. One leak is all it takes for hell to rain fire on you.” Rain clarified

“I give you 100 life potions for the spear. You got more legendary stuff?” X was sure that a legendary weapon would increase her combat power by leaps and bounds, allowing their adventure team to push Miracle back. 200,000 Gold coins for a Legendary weapon was reasonable.

“100 only? Ok never mind. Can you teach me how to use a spear? I feel noxious doing swipes with one.”

“Ok stop whining! If the spear is really to my liking I’ll pass you 125. Are you a berserker as well?”

“No. I am an elementalist, but I feel challenged by melee due to lack of martial arts skills. Can you teach me?”

“Deal”

“Ok see you tomorrow with 200 bottles. I pass you the spear and 150,000 gold coins. You better not get into trouble”. They said goodbyes and wished each other luck. Rain promised to stay clear of the entire episode. She decided to get some sleep after her cousin left. It was a fool’s errand since her anxiety was keeping her awake, turning and twisting in bed for a couple of hours. She decided to get up and check on her various investments and charity projects. 30 minutes later she had sufficiently distracted herself to go back to sleep.


	40. Little Toodle

Rain was paranoid when she woke up 8 hours later. She couldn’t just sit back and do nothing while her cousin risked her life to fulfil her mission. X’s current project carried huge long term risks even though she was merely trying to send out a message to some invisible parties. She stepped out to do some shopping.

. . . .

“Stun. Pickle. Salt. I need 30 tetra micro spies and 3 controllers” a hooded lady in huge sunglasses spoke to the mannequin besides an undergarments shop. A click sound was heard a couple of seconds later. A minute pixel in the mannequin’s eyes came to life.

“ID and reason” a metallic voice answered.

“Cheating husband” the lady spoke while holding a fake tattoo up in full view of the eye. A monotonous laughter could be heard in the background.

“Counter 6”. That was a signal to take the narrow circular alley to the shop’s back entrance. She took her time to slowly arrive at a custom vending machine that sold chips and pop-corn. She waited for the green and blue lights to finish loading before punching in the order number displayed on the vending machine. A packet of chips was dispensed after she made the payment with her quantum watch, the most expensive chips she had ever bought. She took the chips and left the shop.

Tetra micro spies were a bunch of mechanical spiders that looked, moved and webbed like normal spiders. These devices were meant to be used in dark areas and provided full spectrum video and audio feed to their controllers. The spiders created their own communication network with each spider acting as both a relay and a fully functional spy. The controllers could be plugged to an existing network for remote monitoring and control.

Rain had purchased her custom ‘semi-traceable’ quantum watch from the same shop. All quantum watches had a fixed serial number that could be used by the authorities to trace transactions. Hers had a random serial number generator that she needed to sync with an escrow account before doing anything she wanted to keep hidden. While the serial number would still show up in the logs, it would be extremely difficult to trace it back to her. What she liked about this guy was the total anonymity rule he practised. Being an existing customer didn’t guarantee sales. She walked into a public toilet to adjust her appearance before heading to the car park to drive to her next destination.

She had no reason to hide her identity while visiting the museum that was a regular meeting point for the rich and famous. She parked her flashy sports car and scanned a code on the bag of chips to familiarise herself with the installation process and functional scope of the short range tetra radio. This building was closest to the entrance of the sewage channel that the burly guy intended to take. She had picked this parking lot since it was closest to the washing bay and provided an entry point into the drainage system.

Dozens of spiders crawled out of the car window and entered the drainage pipe. They crawled a tiny distance to blend among the shadows of the kerbed parking lot. Rain controlled their motion for an hour from the privacy of her car. After ensuring that her coverage was wide enough and spiders were well hidden in the shadows of the tunnels, she connected the controller to the museum’s network. The second controller was configured a while later to act as failover support. She tested the setup a few times before stepping out of the car with 5 active spiders inside her bag. The primary controller and one of the spiders were left inside the car to monitor the car park.

She entered the building through the regular channels and mingled with the crowd. 10 minutes later she was seated at a rooftop garden restaurant, testing out connectivity between her tablet and the controller. She had come here to plant a spider in the open area to give her a bird’s eye view of the street below. The plan didn’t work since the spider was beyond the coverage area of its tetra network. After finishing her cup of tea she left the building on foot, towards the air bridge connecting the museum to the building on the opposite side.

This place was crawling with young amorous couples and it gave her the creeps. She endured the annoyance and walked around looking for a place with good reception and found a spot that was occupied by a couple. She was wondering how to deploy the spider without raising suspicion and came up with an idea. She took out a spider from her bag and started stroking its torso in front of the couple.

“Little Toodle did you eat well today?” she spoke to the spider adorably, in a high pitch voice, freaking out the couple in front of her.

“Crazy woman” they muttered before quickly vacating the area in horror and disgust. She covered the spider’s tracks, watching it slowly crawl under the bridge and out of public view. She exited the building after confirming the awesome views it provided and started walking towards the burly youth’s exit. The four remaining spiders were deployed to cover a major section of the street. The exit happened to be on a side road overlooking a bank building. She stepped into the shopping centre on the opposite side and hid the second controller in one of the landscaped gardens. After ensuring that the setup was working as expected, she took public transport home. The third controller was merely insurance against unforeseen problems. She connected both the controllers to her workstation to allow the feed to be recorded. With nothing better to do, she decided to log back into the game.

“What? How? Why? Where is my body?” Rain had a shock of her life when she found her consciousness floating around the room like a sylph. After calming down a bit she decided to check out her system messages.

System: Warning! Elemental Poisoning may be triggered in the next 5 seconds.

System: You are suffering from elemental poisoning. Clash between Chaos and Air ended in a chaotic mess. Movement and attack speed +10,000%. Chaos energy has been expelled. Anyone of the same or lesser tier within 20 yards will have their concentration drained by 10% per second for the next 15 seconds. Your body has become shapeless and formless for the next 24 hours.

“How is this considered stable?” Rain was taken aback by her voice echoing from every corner of the room. She tried to cover her ears with her hands but her actions only resulted in a minor eddy. While she was struggling to get accustomed to her new form, she noticed the room’s door open abruptly. A woman walked into it soundlessly, making sure that nobody had noticed her breach. She took out some kind of device and turned it on. After a moment of scanning the device displayed a green mist on its screen.

“This device seems to have some problem in this room. Luckily no dots in the area” she mumbled under her breath. Rain immediately realised that the screen was displaying a rough map of the section around the room. The woman cautiously started assembling another device on the table, checking on the scanner from time to time for any signs of movement. It took her a minute to fully assemble the device.

“Ok let’s see what really happened here. Don’t worry your secrets are totally unsafe with me” the woman gave off a wicked smile before powering the device with thousands of magic crystals.

“Are you sure of that?” millions of whispers rattled through the room, followed by a cacophony of ringing laughter. The woman was too scared to respond. The voices were everywhere. She tried to run but couldn’t. Millions of “Piercing Gazes” had literally turned her into a glass statue. Rain wasn’t sure if a skill was responsible for the result or the spy had committed suicide in the most ingenious manner. Only thing she was sure of was that the spy’s life force was long gone and her soul had been crystallised along with her body. She pushed the door open, located Minor Wind at the opposite end of the city and whispered into his ears to rush over immediately. Those who accompanied him were shocked to notice him freeze for a moment and then run towards the guild residence like a mad man.


	41. Saint’s Hand Exposed

Minor Wind stood frozen, in awe of the lifelike glass statue in front of him. A weird looking device started playing a clip on the conference room’s wall. He held his hands on his head in shock and horror, watching the replay of his meeting with Snow, him being grilling, his SOS call to Rain, her gorgeous monstrosity teleporting over and his even more fervent grilling which saw many guild secrets tumbling out. The ringing laughter was back like a ghost whispering into his soul. This time it was more vivacious than the original version.

“Guild leader’s secret girlfriend! Hahaha. Hahaha. Oh! I am a peerless beauty! That’s so sweet! Hahaha. Hahaha. Wind you want to kill yourself or should I do the honours?” Rain scoffed. Rain was really impressed by Snow’s professional, impartial and noble disposition. She finally understood why the guild leader had picked up fights in the real world to protect her from harm.

Wind was having trouble steadying his balance among the seemingly infinite reverberations of the same message. “I said it was hogwash didn’t I? Can’t you see how worried we were about you?” he yelled in pain. He didn’t realise how loud he was until he heard his own voice echoing off the walls.

“Yeeks. Stop yelling! Do you have any idea what would happen if this information were to leak out? Who is this spy and how did she manage to get in here? Weren’t you supposed to seal this room?” Rain asked a lot more slowly and softly this time.

“I did seal the room. A while later the guards were suddenly knocked out and forcefully logged out. I thought we were under attack so I broke the seal to check on you but you had disappeared. It’s just one weird thing happening after another. I’m not sure if I am sane enough to continue being in charge anymore” Wind had his hands on his head all this time, his head hanging with shame. “This woman is Shu Qui, one of Youlan’s assistants and a reserve core member. If these spies have infiltrated such high level positions then we are truly in danger of collapsing under our own weight. What the hell is this machine anyway?” Minor Wind was truly at a loss the entire day despite an overwhelmingly absurd victory.

“I didn’t mean to belittle you. This machine is truly awesome. You can use it to capture and replay historical events at any location. It costs 100 magic crystals per minute of replay. Now that we know something like this exists we’ll have to come up with new procedures for safeguarding information”

“I’m sorry to have failed you twice today. I wonder how the enemy would respond after learning that we have their little device”

“It’s very simple. The enemy is still within Zero Wing city. She must have obtained it recently. The faint trace of demonic darkness energy means it came from the same source as the monster army. Let me do a quick sweep of the city and mark the targets for you. . . All done! I have marked 2 targets carrying the same energy signature. They are NPCs. Shall we go talk to them?”

“That was fast!”

“Yeah. Kind of my thing for the next few minutes''. Rain knew that the sylph state wouldn’t last for more than 30 minutes. Thanks to double the time difference between the game and real world, the 24 in-game hours were almost up. She had to maximise the benefits from this powerful form. The ability to freeze dry stuff was too awesome to ignore. Both of them setoff to gather a few NPCs and visited the War God’s temple to seek assistance from the chief priest who had expressed his intentions to be kept in loop for any information pertaining to the origins of the faux saint monsters. He was sure they were somehow related to the Evil God’s temple.

Wind, Rustom (War God’s Temple’s high priest), NPC guard captain, and two more players started walking towards the restaurant where the marked persons had accumulated, still waiting for the results of investigation and the return of the tracking machine. A 50 player patrol team moved covertly, setting a perimeter around the restaurant. Rain was all over the place, watching the crowd at the top floor getting impatient. Everybody on that floor was a threat.

Wind used his magisterial privileges to override the reservation of the two topmost floors in the restaurant and sealed all communications with the outside world. He didn’t want the details of the raid to leak, nor allow the culprits to be alerted by their spies. The bodyguards manning the doors were promptly arrested by the patrol column that had sneaked in behind Wind.

“Oh what an interesting gathering we have here. An evil god envoy, a demon god kin, a demon noble and 2 dark NPCs” Rustom remarked as soon as they reached the top floor.

“This floor is ours. Leave with your puny life tiny priest, before we decide to end your pathetic existence” a dark NPC spoke.

“You seem to forget where you stand. You will be pleased with the way we deal with scum like you” a heavy authoritative voice came from behind the priest. Minor Wind’s appearance had convinced everyone that the priest’s entry was not an excursion. 500 hooded people exuding powerful auras, suddenly moved in to surround Minor Wind’s team of 5, sealing off their retreat.

“Mama’s boy you have nowhere to run” evil god’s envoy readied for a fight after slighting Wind. “That priest is mine. I don’t care what you do with the rest”. Everybody drew their weapons and adopted a fighting stance. They were flummoxed by Minor Wind who just stood there, holding his hands close to his chest and smiling carelessly, like he had their lives wrapped around his fingers.

“The priest must die. The rest of you can leave. We have no interest in fighting weaklings like you” the demon god’s kin spoke after mistaking Wind’s carelessness as acceptance of his mistake.

“You guys are really full of crap. Don’t worry I won’t kill the 5 of you until you answer my questions. The rest of you are useless to me” Wind spoke in a commanding tone. A crystallizing wave spread out as soon as he finished his sentence, turning the 500 hooded enemies into glass sculptures within seconds and leaving everybody around him dumbstruck.

“Start talking. I have no interest in fighting weaklings too. I may allow you to leave if you douse my curiosity. That evil god’s envoy will be caught and sealed nonetheless.” Wind calmly stated, striking fear in the hearts of those around him.

“Then catch me if you can!” The envoy crushed a crystal, unleashing bolts of evil energy that exploded the glass sculptures around him into tiny shrapnel. The dust settled to reveal an evil dragon standing in place of the envoy and gathering mana to launch “Dragon’s Breath”. Unknown to him Rain had taken substantial damage from the energy tipped shards due to her sylph form and she was pissed. She could have easily disrupted the dragon’s attack, but she was too angry to let him off that easily. She attacked with “Chaotic Shock” the moment the dragon shaped to release its breath. The sudden blinding effect caused it to involuntarily bend its head to the side, releasing the full brunt of its breath on its allies. While dragons were resistant to most control skills, they had yet to grow resistance towards Chaos attacks. The dragon was losing a lot of concentration in order to fight the stun effect and hadn’t realised that the screams it heard were those of his friends. The fact that it was a darkness type creature made it worse. While dragons had extraordinary senses, it was just sad that all screams sounded the same. It advanced to launch a series of claw swipes to silence the agonised voices around it.

The two demon players were too confused to react when they were suddenly hit by the dragon breath. The 1+ second they took to activate their life saving skills had cost them over 60% of their HP. The dark NPCs hadn’t fared any better either. While they felt that the first attack was an accident, the follow up attack had dispelled all qualms that Dust Edge, the only Tier 4 apostle of Beast Emperor and sole owner of the ‘Evil Dragon Envoy’ legacy, wanted to eliminate them before picking on the weaker Tier 3 players in front of him. The dark NPCs didn’t waste any time analysing the situation and attacked the dragon relentlessly without care, turning the fight into blood curling entertainment.

Silver Ghost and Sandstorm were the only Tier 4 players Mythology had produced so far. In a rush to become Tier 4 and challenge Black Flame, both hadn’t considered raising their trial completion beyond 100%. Sandstorm was extremely lucky that his favourability with Demon God’s doppelganger had earned him the Demon God’s legacy with a Peak Tier 4 legacy core. While the legacy was at par with the original apex legacy in terms of strength and mana based techniques, it lacked some overpowering skills and access to origin skills. Silver Ghost was in a similar situation, he had chosen a strength based demon noble legacy that would allow him to become a high demon at tier 5. Mythology had deployed them here to hunt Black Flame and eliminate him to qualify for another slot of Demon God’s legacy. Both executed “Blood Backtrack” to regain HP levels from six seconds ago and joined the NPCs to slay the dragon.

Dust Edge regained his eyesight six seconds later. He was dismayed to find his own allies attacking him mercilessly while the enemy watched from a distance. They gave him no chance to explain the situation and he himself wasn’t sure what had transpired. “They must have made a deal with Zero Wing to eliminate me. I always had my doubts about these bastards” he thought, switching from overwhelming power to precision attacks. Dragons were apex existences in God’s Domain and fighting against them required more than equipment and skills. Demons were no pushovers either. They gained immense power and magical resistance after transforming into demon forms.

The top floor of the restaurant was reduced to rubble after 50 seconds of incessant fighting. The walls and ceiling had been blown to bits, exposing the fight to everybody in the city. Such a high grade battle had people pick sides and cheer their champions. Minor Wind knew Snow would have his head on a pike if this was allowed to continue unhindered, however Rain held him back from taking action. She knew both sides would revert into their human forms soon, revealing their identities and association for everyone to see. She wasn’t wrong as 10 seconds later all the fighters were down to 5-8% HP. Dust Edge knew that he wouldn’t survive once his dragon transformation was over. He decided to escape while he still had an upper hand.

“You treacherous Mythology bastards shall no longer benefit from Saint’s Hand. Your partnership with Evil God’s temple stands annulled” Dust Edge bellowed before turning to fly away. Pitch black chains suddenly emerged from the ground and clamped his feet, dragging him down.

“Return the 10 death fire cannons you stole from us before even dreaming of getting away. Demon God knows that they are still intact and is sure that this was an insider job. You wanted to steal them from the time you learnt of their capabilities. You summoned the death reaper into the battle with Zero Wing and used her as a distraction to slay millions of faux saints and steal the cannons. The Evil God’s temple will pay for this treachery, starting with you” Silver Ghost bellowed. 

Dust Edge immediately understood the game being played to draw a wedge in the Saint’s Hand. It was true that he had designs on the cannons but he wasn’t foolish enough to steal 10 of them. While he was thinking about the apt words to resolve the dispute, a strange ringing laughter caught their attention.

“Excellent. I was wondering just how long it will take you guys to figure that out. Not bad. Really not bad at all” the laughter continued. A reaper’s phantom flew high above the city, carrying a scythe and spear in each hand. “It’s time to send you guys back to your maker”. The whole area around the restaurant suddenly illuminated with bright flashing lights the moment she ended her sentence. The sudden influx of light blinded everyone present, including the mysterious watchers on magic mirrors everywhere. The battle was over and nothing remained atop the restaurant by the time they could acclimatise with the brightness. A sizzling and fleeting laughter was all that could be heard. It seemed to originate from every direction and reverberated endlessly. Everybody who heard it shook with fear. 

“What?” even Minor Wind was stunned by Rain’s performance. He shook his head in disbelief. This was an awesome day!


	42. Dragon Phoenix Pavilion Bites the Dust

Capturing the evil envoy was worth more than killing him. Minor Wind procured a mobile jail for dark players when the envoy's presence was revealed. Rain summoned her doppelganger and boosted it to tier 6 and cast “Lord’s Phantom” and “Handy Mode” to recreate the death reaper’s appearance that mesmerised the entire God’s domain. She knew that the reaper would distract everybody and allow her formless self to close in on the targets fighting the dragon and crystallize them dead.

The targets were too drained to resist her “Piercing Gaze” and were crystallised before the doppelganger finished speaking her piece. The doppelganger cast “Elemental Inversion” on darkness element, unleashing a blinding flash to cover her tracks. Minor Wind threw the mobile jail next to the dragon who was busy fending off the sudden light attack, trapping it within. The doppelganger landed among the glass statutes, shattered them to pieces and disappeared under the cover of light. Minor Wind recovered the mobile jail and rushed back to his original position. The parting laughter was just a continuation of the act, to remind others of their worthless existence.

Rain knew that her intervention would soon be called out by both the Demon God and Beast Emperor. She was however successful in exposing Mythology’s links to Saint’s Hand and Evil God’s temple. A domino was set into motion and it was more than she bargained for. Conference rooms of many big and small guilds were abuzz with activity at the latest reveal that Mythology was running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. All the powers understood that they would lose the war no matter which side they picked. Either Mythology or faux saint monsters would devour them over time.

The contracts they signed with Mythology were too rigid to relinquish. Many second and third rate guilds disbanded overnight and new collaborative guilds were formed. Many guild towns switched owners and had their resources transferred to avoid the hefty contract dissolution fees demanded by the system. Over 1000 guild leaders and vice guild leaders had to delete their accounts and had to wait 30 days before they could join God’s domain again. All these people were forbidden from starting a guild for one year by the main god system, but could freely join any guild or group in a non-executive position.

Both Mythology and Saint’s Hand were paying no heed to the activities of those small fries as they were too busy saving their own alliance. The faux saint monsters were artificially synthesized using demonic energy, evil energy and pure and untainted life force energy. Due to Beast Emperor’s exit from the alliance they couldn’t make new monsters. The negotiations focussed on the control of existing monsters who were growing very rapidly by consuming resources on the eastern continent. Mythology was in a precarious position thanks to the War God’s temple declaring them as enemies of life and humankind. Lots of crusade quests were likely to be announced throughout the eastern continent to purge them and their benefactors from the continent.

“Vice leader Cold Shadow, there isn’t really much to discuss anymore. You guys were responsible for the alliance breaking down from the very beginning and hence we request you to relinquish control of the faux saint monsters into our care. Only we can protect your interests in the eastern continent now” Dawn Domination spoke with conviction, laying down the only outcome that awaited her.

“You misunderstand guild leader Dawn, Mythology will be taking control of all monsters in the eastern continent. Your opinion doesn’t really matter” Cold shadow stated coldly, signalling the end to all relationships with demon heart and dark world.

“Your arrogance led us to our downfall and you still refuse to learn your lessons. It doesn’t matter though. We’ll accept your conditions only if you deliver the orb with sacrifices as promised”

“Hahaha. You know the orb is useless without the demon god’s energy to power it”

“Well then you’ll be gaining everything by giving us nothing in exchange” Dawn’s smirk said everything Cold Shadow needed to hear about their plans to create something even more sinister. Her intuition was telling her to walk away immediately. She knew exactly how the orb functioned and those people had no possible way of extracting life force from it. Was Dawn tricking her into sacrificing the lives of her guild mates out of spite? Thinking it was some form of ‘revenge sex’ she decided to take the gamble. There was simply nothing to lose and everything to gain through this deal.

“Here is the orb containing sacrifices of 7 million tier 3 players and 30 million tier 2 players. Take it or leave it” she said with a sly smile on her face. She had only managed to obtain this much in such a small time.

“I guess we can make do with these. Here are the signet rings for the faux saint monsters under our control here. I hope you use them well. That concludes our business here” Dawn Dominance and Flame Heart left the conference room after exchanging the items. Cold Shadow was suddenly overcome with an overbearing pain of loss. She had no idea why her victory felt like a catastrophic defeat. The signet rings worked as expected and she could sense the monsters in the vicinity answer her calls. She returned to the Fire Dragon Empire to meet up with the rest.

. . . .

Two men exuding powerful auras were pacing around another exquisitely dressed gentleman. The man seemed to be mourning with his hands wrapped around his head, his back bent and torso leaning onto the table. This gloomy place was none other than the conference room of Dragon Phoenix Pavilion in the Apocalypse Empire. Nine Dragons Emperor was the biggest loser of the day. After usurping the position of guild leader and kicking out all the confidants of Phoenix Rain, he had been itching for an opportunity to rid himself of all of Phoenix Rain’s erstwhile supporters who still bore hopes of her return. He had gladly accepted the task of collecting sacrifices from Cold Shadow with an intention to wipe out the detractors. He didn’t care about the outrageous compensations he had to pay to get rid of these pests since Mythology promised to refund him all the necessary expenses.

Martial Dragon was tasked to set up the sacrificial ritual and collect all sorts of sacrifices that included independent players looking to make a quick buck. Not only did they receive 1500 credits per level and additional 50 to 80 thousand credits for tiers, they also got to sell all their equipment and wares for 20% above market price. Over 30 million players consisting of the entirety of Phoenix pavilion were sacrificed. To their horror, the orb rejected over 70% of them due to taint of unwillingness. Nine Dragons Emperor was aghast to learn how strict the harvesting requirements of Demon God’s orb were, compared to the Evil God’s orb he was more familiar with.

Having fully grasped the gravity of the situation he had no choice but to coax his own trusted men to sacrifice themselves for even loftier compensations and promises to handhold them back to their levels when they restarted 30 days later. He was over two-thirds done when Cold Shadow visited him and collected the orb. Sacrifices were no longer necessary after Beast Emperor had bailed. There was no talk of any compensation coming his way and this only meant he had to pay for everything by himself. The guild warehouses were slowly being emptied and put up on auction. The gold and magic crystal were sold on trading platforms to arrange for the billions of credits he was required to pay. He squandered over 75% of the guild’s manpower and over 80% of the resources so far and the number was slowly growing. Most of the remaining members dissolved their contracts and left the guild after learning about its plight. Other than the 3 trump card legions, there was hardly any member left inside the whole empire. Their enemies wouldn’t even need to wage a war to dislodge them from their bastion of power.

. . . .

The perpetrator of chaos that consumed the entire eastern continent had finally recovered from her sylph form, totally unaware of the chain of events she set in motion. There were too many things she had to catch up to. Saint’s Hand had dissolved. Mythology had been decreed persona non grata in the entire eastern continent by War God’s Temple and all Kingdoms and Empires, and bounties were issued on its members. Dragon Phoenix Pavilion had been kicked out of Apocalypse Empire and was reduced to a 3rd rate guild in Black Dragon Empire. Ironically, the guild that did them in was Miracle, their closest ally. Demon God had declared war over Evil God’s Temple. And lastly there were rumours of faux saint monster sightings in the western continent. Surprisingly nobody was talking about the death reaper anymore.

Everybody was too busy to figure out the biggest scoop of the night. Zero Wing had annexed over 200 second and third rate guilds and expanded its territory to control over a third of Black Dragon Empire. Snow wasn’t a pacifist like Black Flame and would never give up on such a god send opportunity to expand the guild's influence. Several first rate guilds had sought her protection from faux saint monsters in exchange for a similar deal they had with Mythology. Zero Wing however was vicious and shameless in openly asking for better terms that were outright fraudulent. These guilds had no choice but to accept them if they had to survive these chaotic times.

Melancholic Smile was at her busiest best as Candlelight commerce had gained over 1000 members overnight, catapulting it to be at par with most commerce firms on the trading platform with access to markets in all major cities and towns of eastern continent. Several other super guilds were also busy consolidating their positions, trying their best to cash in on the madness.


	43. Zero Wing's New Trump Card Legions

Rain lazed on the cushions inside her private residence in Zero Wing City, wondering if her super sensory soul state was the reason for her target’s crystallisation. She deduced that just like Earth-Water, Fire-Air and Space-Time supplementary pairs, Chaos and Illusion enhanced each other’s damage.

“Does their fusion give birth to a new mystical energy that causes crystallization of body and soul?” she pondered. She was curious about the fate of players whose soul was crystallised. Ideally players dropped a level and a piece of equipment upon death. The crystallized players only dropped glass fragments and a ‘soul crystal’. She was no longer bothered by elemental poisoning. She just had to bid her time and experience the effects of each clash before formulating a strategy to overcome them. She had to find ways to raise affinity for all elements at the same time to maintain consistency across various phases of poisoning. Her communicator relieved her of the deluge in her head.

“Rain, where are you? We have all been summoned to Zero Wing City. See you there in 30 minutes” Blue Bamboo was all smiles.

“Really? I didn’t get the memo”

“That probably means you are already there. Even better. See you at the guild residence training grounds later” Bamboo chirped before disconnecting the call. Rain realised that she would have to remove the cloak while inside the training ground. It was either “Ambiguity” or level. She had to choose between the two and realised it was safer to level down and mingle in the crowd. She checked out her status window to review the gains from the previous battles.

Undying (Epic Title - Passive): [Number of lives: 1409]

Time affinity: 235%.

Experience Bank: 1,958,299,411,000 EXP

She started pumping EXP and magic crystals into bracers of jeopardy. After multiple upgrades she spent 599,093,750,000 EXP and 377,900 magic crystals to bring it up to level 9. The next upgrade would have pushed her below level 125 and shaved off her combat power. After some rough estimates she pinched 123,000,000,000 EXP from the “Experience Bank” and pumped 307,546,875,000 EXP and 233,100 magic crystals into the bracers to bring herself to 5% of level 125. She could now escape from the prying eyes of the spies within the guild.

After checking everything was in order she equipped the “Staff of Neverwinter” and teleported to White River City. She walked around the business area for a few minutes before entering the teleportation plaza and beaming herself back to Zero Wing City. Nobody was aware of her presence other than Minor Wind, Liang Jing and Gentle Snow. The round trip ensured that her name had an entry in the travel logs, just in case someone suspected her. Upon entering the guild residence she took off the cloak to reveal her real identity. Her presence didn’t raise any eyebrows as expected.

Rain didn’t have many friends in the guild. She waited for Blue Bamboo at a corner near the entrance. She was trying her best to avoid eye contact with people, fearing she might convert them into a glass sculpture. Liang Jing involuntarily shuddered when she saw Rain standing in the corner. She could never expect such a beautiful level 125 elementalist to transform into a murderous phantasmal monstrosity. She managed to keep her cool and carried on with her preparations for the upcoming presentation. Blue Bamboo was immediately whisked away to a corner.

“Whatever you do just don’t look into my eyes and don’t ask why”

“Why?”

“Damn it Blue. This is not a place for such discussions. You know why we are here?”

“No idea. Some big shake up happened overnight. I think we will be redeployed elsewhere” Blue summarised the events rather excitedly. Rain was amazed by how much damage her two lines had caused. “Oh it’s gross! I can’t stand you treating me like I don’t exist. Use these. I just got them from Fairy City and they are cool” Blue passed her a set of glasses.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fairy Shades (Secret Silver Rank, Eye Shades)

Allows the user to accurately measure distance between 2 points. These are not safety glasses and should not be used for combat

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Oh this is just what I need” Rain was amused by the description. She put it on and immediately regretted her decision. The glasses tracked every object in the room, numbers popped up randomly whenever an object was in direct line of sight. Blue was exactly 0.456336 yards in front of her and it was immensely irritating.

“This thing is obnoxious” Rain complained.

“Just the thing you need. Hahaha”. The presentation started in a few minutes and Blue was right on the money. The map displayed how much the guild had grown overnight and they were suddenly short of manpower to defend the new territories. Snow had decided to create 2 named legions, the dragon fire legion and black dragon legion, each consisting of 500 members that would be provided special training and equipment to boost their combat standards and would be responsible to defend the northern and eastern frontiers. A third naval regiment would defend the sea routes to the south and west of the empire. Rain remembered the stash of weapons and equipment she had collected and decided to sell it to the guild at market price. There was no need to contribute to the GCPs since it would only put her in the spotlight. She found it quite entertaining when Liang Jing announced that the guild had procured the sufficient amount of magic crystals to pay off the expert who helped to defend the city.

The qualification criteria to participate in the competition would have scared most players away. This however was Zero Wing, a guild with a stringent membership criteria. They had over 150,000 people in the 500,000 crowd that were eligible to compete for the 3000 positions. Top 6000 individuals would then be grouped into teams of 6 and required to compete in group events to land a chance for the 2000 spots and 1000 reserve spots. Snow declared that she would personally pick the commanders of the legion.

Blue wanted to sign up for the competition, however Rain asked her to focus on her combat standards and prepare for her tier 4 quest instead. She had already failed her first attempt and lost 10 levels and 5 days as a result. Rain wanted to personally train her for the next 10 days so that she could become strong enough to achieve tier 4. She was happy that Bamboo had put in a lot of effort to bring herself back to level 120 while being in a 50% weakened state.

“My 2 favourite ladies” Minor Wind smirked as he approached them from the side. Both were pissed and shot an angry glare at him. Rain had momentarily forgotten about the piercing gaze and only realised it when the glasses exploded into tiny shards and injured everyone around them. If not for the Fairy Shades, Wind would have become a glass statue by now. He was taken aback and froze at the sight of the freak accident before him.

“Okay! I finally know why” Blue mumbled, she felt awkward as others were looking towards them.

“Everyone, I know this is a happy occasion, but please refrain from playing tricks on your buddies” Liang Jing came to their rescue. She was still on the stage guiding the members. Luckily Wind was intact and only suffered minor injuries. Those shards had enough power to penetrate his dark gold armour set.

Rain inquired about Snow’s whereabouts and borrowed a guild scroll for Lake Heart City. Under the pretext of activating the guild transfer scroll she activated quantum teleport and arrived in Fairy Country. She equipped the cloak and purchased a stack of 25 shades before teleporting to Lake Heart City. She was led into a small meeting room where Snow was already waiting for her.

“This room is too small. Can we move to a bigger one?” The request surprised Snow. This room was the most secure room in the entire guild residence. She relented and they moved into the conference room. Rain took out the epic spatial pouch and started emptying its contents all over the place. She then took out more stuff from her bag and emptied it as well. She finally started picking things out of the spatial ring and carefully arranged it on the table. These were the spoils of war she picked from the “Origin of Sin” and Andal. She purposely left out the items from God ranked targets. Snow on the other end stood frozen like a statue, watching the room flooded with Level 140 and above equipment.

“That’s all I got. You can ask someone to come in and organise all the items. I am not sure if they are usable or what their value is. Could you arrange for them to be sold, smelted or distributed to the guild members? I really need a lot of gold to purchase some stuff. I don’t mind if you take a cut or processing fees to get this load off me. I trust you will treat me fairly” Rain stated while looking at Snow who was still frozen at the abundance.

“I am not sure if the guild can afford so much. We’ll definitely make a lot of Candlelight commerce members very happy. It will take me some time to organise and distribute all of this. Do you mind giving the guild members a 20% discount? Candlelight usually charges a 15% handling fee but we manage to get a better rate through them. Can you wait a week or you are in a rush. You know we get better rates by controlling supply and demand.” Snow had no reason to short change Rain and she understood the fact clearly.

“I don’t mind if the guild benefits and I can wait for a while. You can pay me on a daily or weekly basis when the stock gets sold” Rain said resolutely.

“Can we move to the secured room to carry forward this conversation?”

“Sure”

Snow initiated a call on her communicator. “Snake. Report!”

“We have just arrived at the guild residence after finishing the mission. We’ll all need to rest for at least 6 hours before we can start kicking again” Fierce Snake reported

“Good. Get your team outside the conference hall and use it as your resting area. Nobody is allowed to step within 50 yards of it” Snake was stumped by the strange request, “and ask Candlelight to send in a team of 50 appraisers, 5 forgers, 5 alchemists and 5 engineers. These must be people they trust. Their delivery quota for the day is waived if they are selected for a visit. Let them into the conference room and tell shopkeeper Stan that I’ll need an appraisal report by this afternoon”. Snow’s request puzzled Snake. 50 appraisers! Were they planning a trip to the royal treasury? He shook his head and followed the command to the letter.

“It will be done. We come over in a minute” Snake stated before relaying the command to his team mates. Other than the regular runners who were assigned to get equipment repaired or arrange for food and medical supplies, the rest of the team marched on and took positions all around the conference hall. They were allowed to rip apart the cushions from the reception area to make themselves comfortable.


	44. Snow’s Secrets

Snow and Rain made their way back to the small room. She shot forth a question at Rain the moment she closed the door.

“You planning to sell the cannons to someone else?” Snow was too direct

“I don’t plan to sell the cannons to anyone. They will stay with me until either Demon God and Beast Emperor destroy each other or reconcile and try to attack us like they did yesterday” Rain replied. It was obvious that a single sighting or rumour would jeopardise the balance.

“It’s good that we think the same way. I hope you keep them well hidden. Recently we have come across devices that can scan energy signatures in warehouses and identify their contents. Make sure you don’t store them in any of our guild cities unless you want to make us their number one enemy” Snow added. It was obvious that Demon God would dispatch his agents to scour the continents.

“No city is safe against Demon God. Only way to stay safe is to stay hidden. Did Wind tell you about the strange device we found in the conference room yesterday?”

“Yes and you have no idea how gratuitous I am to you for nailing that spy. I wanted to ask the guild leader to bring you in as one of the shareholders of Zero Wing, but I realised you are the type that likes to hide in the shadows. I won’t pester you for your reasons but I can see a lot of reasons why hiding your identity is paramount to the guild. You can state your terms to me and I’ll put my weight behind you while negotiating with the guild leader, or probably it’s easier for you to talk to him directly since the two of you are childhood friends” Snow’s earnest words befuddled Rain. She never desired to be a part of a structured machinery but she wouldn’t turn down a good business opportunity either.

“Frankly I am not sure how to respond to that. I just wanted to help the guild out from time to time. I joined Zero Wing because the guild leader assured me that I won’t be chained like all the other guilds. I am fine with the GCP system since it's normal to expect everyone to earn their keep. I need to think carefully before undertaking official engagements. I hate the unnecessary responsibilities that come with it”

“Well let me know when you have decided” Snow spoke with a nod of understanding, “I hope these people finish appraising the stuff you brought by today. It’s really a lot”

“I can help with the appraisal, though I don’t know how to quantify things beyond identification”

“Really? You can appraise things?”

“Test me if you wish” Rain replied with a confident smile.

“I am going to show you something. I must make it clear that this is a top secret item. Nobody I trust has been able to appraise it so far. I wanted to show it to the guild leader to get his opinion” Snow took out a scroll that emitted divine might. Just one look at it turned Rain’s smile into shock. She knew exactly what it was. She was hoping to keep this a secret for a while longer but it didn’t matter anymore.

“I know what this is. I also know that the guild is not strong enough to survive it. You need at least 12 tier 6 players to even think about exploring this land” Rain didn’t even have to appraise the scroll since she could read the words “Map of Andal” written on top of it. She handed the scroll back to Snow

“Can you tell me more about this land? Is it a treasure map?”

“It’s a land of 5 attributed veins, ruled by a coven of fallen witches and administered by over 500 Tier 5 corrupted dryads. The veins have their own share of occupants, including mythic ranked. I would suggest you keep it hidden because there are a lot of powers that are interested in it as well” Rain’s straightforward reply dazzled Snow. It was stupid to ask for more details as they would mean nothing without the strength to wrestle it from its owners. Sensing Snow’s curiosity and reluctance to ask useless questions, she continued “It’s a sealed other world, located 1000 yards below Zero Wing City. That’s more than enough reason why that scroll must be kept hidden.” Rain knew that Andal must not be touched by outsiders until the mystical energy in the environment dissipated fully. Only those with sufficient elemental resistances could afford to tread inside.

“Ok, understood. What about this?” It was Rain’s turn to be amazed again. She used the eye of the dark seer to appraise the tome emitting divine might.

System: Eye of Dark Seer Agnomous requires 2000 magic crystals to appraise this item.

“Damn. It needs 2000 magic crystals to appraise.” Rain felt a chill creeping down her spine. It had to be a divine tome to evade appraisal and the eye seemed to be pulsating on its own in its presence. “Is this room strong and secure enough?”

“Not as strong as the forging rooms at candlelight in White River City but secure enough to keep the conversation from pouring outside”

“Then we should head to White River City as the divine might will flood out of the tome and wreck this place. This tome is a divine artefact, unlike other tomes that simply emit divine might. Appraising such items often comes with a sizeable risk of detection by Ancients or their minions. They might even curse you straight away or issue a bounty on your head” Rain explained. It was easy to corroborate such stories as other players had been afflicted with debilitating curses for much lesser items.

“You sure it’s a divine artefact?” Snow was amazed at the revelation. She knew the tome held immense power but the possibility of it being a divine item had totally exceeded her expectations.

“Definitely a divine item and 80% sure that appraising it will trigger some catastrophe. Best case scenario the appraiser will suffer, in the worst case the entire city or town could be flattened” Rain asserted.

“In that case it’s best to hold on to it for the moment. This book automatically bound itself to me the moment I picked it up and I am having a tough time maintaining my sanity against its mental attacks. I get plunged into these random illusory worlds from time to time and have to fight my way out of them. While it helps me get stronger every time, I have been pushed to the edge far too many times and barely managed to stay alive in my last battle. I need to find out what I am dealing with. I really want to challenge my tier 4 trial as soon as possible but am unable to leave since there is nobody here to manage the guild in my absence.” Snow had finally found the courage to confide in someone and discuss her problems. Nobody in the guild knew how her power had boundlessly grown over the last month and people suspected that she found a way to artificially enhance her power like the faux saint monsters.

“When is your next challenge? And how do you prepare for it?” Rain asked.

“This tome pulsates 30 seconds before the challenge and I have to quickly find a secluded spot to enter it. There isn’t much preparation. You just need to do what you do best. Slay the monsters and get out. These fights don’t award me any EXP or items, but I get to learn a random combat technique upon winning”

“Why did you think I could help you with it?”

“I am not sure. So far even the empire’s top appraisers have conveyed their inability to appraise this item. You at least have the ability and understand the consequences of your actions. I’m thankful for that. Besides I have borne the burden of this curse so far and don’t wish to inflict it on others” Snow words had a profound impact on Rain. She felt compelled to help her out.

“How good are you with a two handed Axe?” Rain asked

“I would grade myself 9 on 10 fighting with an axe. Only a few people close to me know that. Why did you ask?” Snow stated with a proud look on her face. Axe was the first weapon she used in virtual games. The heavy head and sleek handle of an axe allowed her to emulate a continuous whirlwind slash by transferring her weight to and fro. She was forced to stop using them since it was bad for her marketing image. It was easier to sell a Goddess to the masses than a marauding barbarian. All her public appearances featured a sword that embodied class and panache, giving her a regal aura. She had trained extensively with a sword and was still a fair distance from mastery when she entered God’s domain. She only needed a few months with Zero Wing to iron out chinks in her swordplay and storm into the realm of monsters.

“I want to challenge you to a bout. Though I cannot bring myself to tier 3, I’ll discount my attributes by 30%” Rain winked at her.

“No need. Come at me with all your might. I want to see how powerful the death reaper really is” Snow was not the one to back away from powerful opponents. There was nobody in the guild that could excite her.

“I accept but only if you use an axe” Rain teased her

“You really want to die a quick death” Snow quipped, causing both ladies to erupt in laughter. They teleported to Stone Forest City and entered a private ring in the battle arena. Snow’s entry into the building caused a lot of commotion. Everybody was excited to see her fight but were soon disappointed to learn that observation mode was set to ‘guild secret’. Even the platinum level members were left high and dry by the lack of access to the duel that was about to begin. They were also miffed by the fact that none of them had any clue about the identity of her challenger.

Both the fighters took positions at opposite ends of the ring. Whoever’s HP reached 1 would be declared the loser. Rain was waiting for the system timer to countdown to 0. Snow on the other end was swinging her axe with a studied pace.


	45. Duel of Monsters

Snow was swinging so fast that it appeared as if she was surrounded by a fan of axes. Rain’s intuition pricked her to blink away the moment the timer hit 0. The axe was onto her in an instant. She managed to escape unharmed but freaked out after noticing the axe split her long wavy hair into half. Snow had instantly covered 200 yards and Rain knew it was not a skill.

“Amazing response time. So far nobody has been able to resist my charms when I go wild” Snow had a huge smile when she moved again to close the distance with Rain, who was mightily impressed with the manoeuvre.

“Being nobody has its privileges” Rain cast “Punching Bag” on Snow and started attacking her in a bizarre pattern. Snow saw through the misdirection technique of random haphazard attacks and ran straight towards Rain, who was preparing a life drain hexotic trap. Snow was amused to see the attacks changing trajectories and bending towards her. She noticed Rain lose a tiny amount of HP without having received any attack. She instinctively threw a wild swing of the axe towards Rain and used the momentum to somersault over her, avoiding the trap in the process. The beams lost their target and shot towards Rain instead. She used the staff as a pivot to jump into the air and avoid the incoming attack. She used her feet to tap some of the beams in Snow’s direction who was running in after sensing an opening. This creative redirection impressed Snow. She sidestepped the attack beam and closed in on Rain while she was still mid air. She however lost her footing and slipped the moment she came close enough to land a blow. She transferred the momentum of the fall to her axe, to offset “Slippery Slope”, and swiped her way out of trouble. The fighters stood 20 feet apart after the first exchange.

Both women stood still for a while, admiring each other’s battle strategies. Snow hadn’t grasped how Rain managed to evade her and the shabby slip a while ago. Rain was mesmerised by Snow’s ability to mix strength and speed into precision strikes and the way she felt like an extension of her axe, rather than the other way round. Snow had become the weapon she was holding.

“Round 2?”

They both approached each other with caution, without compromising on the quality or quantity of attacks. The cat and mouse game went on for the next 5 seconds with both of them not managing to land a single hit on each other. Rain’s evasive manoeuvres were top-notch while Snow’s movement techniques were difficult to predict. Rain however was happier of the 2 for lasting so long against a high precision melee attack.

“I didn’t realise you have unlocked your domain” Snow stated

“I didn’t realise you have mastered ascension realm” Rain replied

“You have a full suite of legendary armour and a legendary staff” Snow noted

“Yet I am unable to land a hit on you” Rain sighed

“That’s because you are trying to fight me like a melee warrior and it makes me feel bad that I haven’t been able to hit you yet. I am not going to hold back anymore. I suggest you do the same” Snow said before switching to combat techniques. A few seconds later she was confused to the core.

“Illusory attacks don’t work on you. Interesting!” Snow noted, eliciting a smile from Rain. “Do you plan to drag this until we are both out of stamina?” she asked further, getting a bit frustrated by her inability to land a hit so far. She fully understood that stepping within 5 yards of Rain was a bad idea due to random traps and slippery surfaces. She had to find a way to jump around her and yet surprise her enough to land a hit.

“Hey! You aren’t using your skills either. Let’s start round 3” Rain stated as she used Timing and Placement to put some distance between them and started casting “Lightning Sanction”. Snow soon caught up and tried her best to disrupt her casting. Rain slithered around Snow’s attacks and finished casting the spell, using impressive evasive footwork techniques. The Jealous witch’s training room had helped Rain come a long way forward.

Snow sensed a powerful attack coming her way and instinctively grabbed Rain’s arm, pulling her closer. They were both stunned when they found themselves 300 yards away from the fight zone. Snow had successfully used Rain as a shield to deflect most of the lightning spear and lost a bit of HP as the residual effects kicked in. Rain was pissed with herself for allowing it to happen and started a relentless assault on Snow to rid her of this shame. She was finally serious and furious as well. Spells and skills flew in both directions, a high speed and high pitched battle started. Both managed to dodge their attackers from time to time, but they were taking hits as well.

10 seconds later they had used up all their single target skills and spells. Snow’s axe disintegrated when she blocked a full blooded “Sucker Punch”. Snow still had over 50% HP remaining after the exchange while Rain was slightly below 70%.

“Sorry to disappoint you” Snow took out “Glorious Will” and immediately felt her power increase. “Shall we start round 4?” she spoke while activating the bronze ranked “Piercing Lance” combat technique. Over 30 darkness spears flew towards Rain with varying trajectories, forcing her to defend. Snow used bronze combat technique “Frozen Blades” to attack her from behind, and followed it up with another advanced bronze combat technique “Hammer Smash” to launch a tier 4 attack from the sides. Rain had other ideas. She used “Swap Position” to put Snow inside her own hellscape.

“Damn. I thought I had you there” Snow yelled, vehemently defending herself. She survived after losing another 10% HP

“Dream on” Rain chirped. They exchanged many blows over the next seconds, pushing down their HPs in the process. Rain felt that Snow’s power and speed had increased tremendously after equipping the sword but her movements had become more monotonous and predictable. The fluidity, randomness and guile of the axe swings had been replaced by a choppier, boxed version of sword lights. She started flooding the ring with one large scale AOE spell after another.

“You know I am here. Why are you attacking everything but me” Snow asked, frustrated by Rain’s actions.

“I’m merely reducing the size of the ring to a 25 yards space. I think it’s time to go all out and finish this duel” Rain stated.

“As you wish” Snow stated, preparing to take the final stance.

A huge crowd had gathered inside the battle arena while the fight raged on. Though they couldn’t see anything, they were freaked out by the explosions that shook the entire building from time to time. NPC administrators were pacing around looking worried. There was a limit to the amount to power the magic arrays could suppress before giving way. The sheer amount of skills and spells that were being unleashed had drained most of the array’s power source. They were wondering how to step in and stop the fight before it spilled over to the central plaza and endangered the crowd.

“Why are so many people here?”

“Are you retarded? Don’t you know Snow Goddess is fighting an unknown expert inside that room!”

A huge explosion rocked the space, causing some people to lose their balance and topple over.

“Then why are the NPCs so sca..” Another explosion rocked the plaza with enough power to lift the tier 3 experts into air by a few inches. The ripple effect smashed the windows and shattered all the glassware in the high class bar upstairs.

“We must be under attack. Prepare…” A massive explosion, ripped through the central plaza, the force of the impact was so huge that everybody was smashed against the walls of the plaza. A thick cloud of dust enveloped the entire area. The dust settled to reveal the ruins of the shattered arena whose floor was pulverised into fine dust. It looked like the holes had walls between them and not the other way round. The massive support beams were severely corroded. Two ladies were seated inside and laughing away.

“I think we should call it a day”

“This was fun. We should do it again sometime”

With the battle area shrunk, the ladies went hammer and tongs in a rush to overpower each other, exchanging blow for blow at times. Snow finally had Rain surrounded and unleashed her mightiest skill “Myth of Light”. Rain used “Void’s Echo” to absorb it and reflect it back at her at 600% damage of the original skill. Snow used “Light Speed” to somehow dodge the entire AOE range and arrived behind Rain. They both stopped after sensing the breach in the arena and sat down to joke about the entire episode. Rain had already swapped her staff to avoid drawing any parallels with the reaper. A rejuvenation hex appeared below them to help regain the HP and stamina they lost in the gruelling fight.


	46. God’s Gladiator

They laughed as they discussed each other’s counter intuitive strategies. Rain hadn’t fought such a high pitched battle so far and was happy to have made it so close towards the end. Both of them hadn’t used any berserk or summoning skills. Control skills were mostly ineffective. Defensive offence and attack redirection was the only way to score in this match.

“I heard there is a nice pool side bar above the freedom inn. Shall we go there and chill” Rain suggested in a jovial manner. She had never been to the top floor of freedom inn. Snow was her key to the super privileged and restricted area.

“Sure. Let’s go!” the ladies made their way to the top floor of the freedom inn.

The incessant laughter had the crowd wondering what was so funny about wrecking their own battle arena. They wanted to follow them around but were quickly stopped by the Knight Captain. Melancholic Smile wanted to step in and confront them about the damage they caused but decided to step away after sensing the upbeat wild energy the two ladies exuded. She booked the entire top floor of freedom inn to help the ladies unwind. Girls gotta have some fun after all. They sank into the cushions by the poolside and sipped on drinks and refreshments the NPC attendant served.

“The biggest hurdle in your path is yourself. Have you realised how natural you are with an axe. Yet you don’t embrace the beast inside. Are you worried about your image, about how others see you? Is this really what you want? Live by other people’s standards.” Rain started the conversation.

“You calling me a fake?” Snow retorted

“Yes. Someone of your capability should be a role model for everyone who wants to break free from the mould. Yet here you are, having people drool over your body and treating you like a trophy”

“Sigh. Why does everyone expect so much from me? I just want to be left alone”

“Really? Don’t you enjoy the attention?”

“I did when I was younger. It was addictive. Now it’s just a burden. I really wish for all this to go away”

“Oh that’s simple. Pick up the axe and grind them all. Unleash that beautiful beast hiding within”

“My axe! You shattered it. I hate you!”

“Hahaha. Ok my fault. Please accept this worthy replacement” Rain took out “Titan’s Wrath” the legendary axe she picked from the demon’s loot and passed it to Snow. Snow didn’t know what just hit her. Holding a legendary weapon was akin to controlling fates of men.

“Legendary Axe! Did you bait me just to test my axe skills? Is that why you didn’t transform into a 7 yard giant?”

“Duh. I never transformed since you never used your berserk skill. Earlier I just wanted to sell you the axe. Now I feel bad about destroying yours so I am gifting this to you. Frankly the decision to challenge you to a duel was an instinctive one.” Rain clarified.

“In that case I’ll buy it from you, and subtract the damages from the amount”

“Ok whatever”

“You have excellent reaction time and evasive techniques. Why are your attacks so clumsy? Had your attacks been precise and focussed I would have lasted less than 10 seconds”

“I am not martially trained. I just play for fun and it’s a great way of making money” Rain sighed.

“In that case I’ll train you personally. You already have a great grasp of timing and placement. You need to brush up on your precision and strategy. Equipment can only get you so far. What do you say?”

“Nobody needs to know!”

“Ok I’ll inform nobody straightaway. Next 7 days you are my apprentice in Lake Heart City”

“Deal. Can I invite my friend Blue Bamboo as well? I promised to train her earlier. Maybe you could train us both?”

“If she can keep up!”

“Then we meet again tomorrow. I need to be somewhere else”. Rain realised it was less than an hour before the heist and decided to log off. However before she left she turned around and shook Snow with her parting words.

“The tome you carry is a summoning token to the arena of Hephaestus, the Fire God and God of Gladiators. It’s your ticket to become the champion of one of the most powerful Gods known to men. Every warrior you defeat in the arena brings you closer to the summit” Rain spoke before teleporting to Zero Wing City. Even though she did not do a full appraisal, she could read basic information. There was a high chance Snow could automatically unlock its power after becoming a champion.

Snow took a while to slowly digest the revelation. She was lost in her thoughts when her communicator rang.

“Vice Leader, I have finished gathering 2 million magic crystals and would be transferring them to you now. I will be sending you the inventory list for the equipment and materials inside the conference room as well. The appraisal team needs 6 hours to furnish the full report” Fierce Snake reported

Snow’s jaw dropped looking at the inventory list that consisted of 1 “suspected” legendary item, 25 fragmented legendary equipment, 282 epic equipment including 32 set armour pieces, 580 6-piece dark gold armour set equipment for plated classes, 546 8-piece dark gold armour set equipment for spell casters and light armour units, 934 assorted dark-gold equipment and weapons, 1380 spell books for various classes and tiers, 698 tier 3 attributed gemstones, 896 assorted gemstones, 1508 stacks of legendary materials, 3587 stacks of lesser legendary materials, 1568 assorted energy crystals and 35 treasure chests. The rest of the equipment was either scrap or could be smelted to recover some materials.

The real reason Snow was flabbergasted was a side note from Snake about 598 Sun essences that were dropped by Xnights of Light when slain by Dryad Mother. Snow had commissioned multiple quests to locate them and had only managed to gather enough to upgrade “Glorious Will” to Fragmented Legendary level 4. The 5th and final level required 600 essences and the latest haul had given her the necessary materials to go all the way and upgrade the sword of violence into a sword of nightmares. She messaged Melancholic Smile to meet her in Lake Heart City in 6 hours and setoff to upgrade the sword.


	47. The Heist

“Road Closure Notice: Orchard Boulevard will be partially shut for maintenance and reparation works from 8PM to 10PM tonight. Traffic towards Capitol Square will be redirected through the feeder alleys. Traffic towards Grand Arena will not be affected”

“How predictable! Let the games begin!” Rain chuckled at the road closure notice. The announcement was timed to perfection, beautifully sandwiching the heist in between. One side of the road was closed to traffic and security personnel were deployed along the entrance of the main and subsidiary roads to assist in diverting traffic and crowd control.

Rain checked on the status of the spiders and fine-tuned the display configuration and alignment for optimal perception in the orange incandescent light that currently illuminated the drainage service corridors. She was eager to watch the entire heist playing out in front of her, from the point the delivery van was intercepted, to overpowering the guards, diversion created by the burly youth and the eventual escape. She split the wall projection into multiple screens with feeds from various spiders being displayed concurrently. She was hoping to relish every moment of it. She really had no clue about the trysts of fate that often laid the best laid plans to waste.

The party started earlier than expected when 20 masked personnel moved into the drain and took positions along the narrow corridors and service platforms. They surrounded the 50 yard area around the sewage entrance and patiently waited for their prey. They were unaware that somebody was monitoring and recording every aspect of their movement and communications. Another group of hooded characters made their way inside and stealthily encircled the original group. These 25 people were armed to the teeth and waited in the shadows to play their hand.

“There are bad apples and there are rotten apples” Rain mumbled, enjoying a potential double cross situation. She wondered if more parties would join the hunt. She was lucky that nobody noticed the mechanical spiders. The waiting game had begun. Many restless moments later an armoured van turned into the street and slowed down enough to covertly alight a passenger carrying a secured briefcase in his hands. The burly youth started moving towards the drain entrance and the van continued on its path.

The first team of masked personnel was getting visibly excited and prepared to intercept the burly youth the moment he entered their net. It was obvious that there were others watching the scene with a lot of anticipation. There was something about the burly youth’s gait that triggered warning bells in Rain’s head. She had an ominous premonition that everything was about to go south at any moment. Her heart started pounding when the man stopped a few feet from the entrance and looked towards the van that was almost heading out of Rain’s coverage area, with a smirk on his face.

A huge explosion ripped through the street. The van split into two parts and was flung high into the air. The hooded group of shady characters opened fire on the group they had encircled. Their bloodbath was in perfect sync with the explosion outside. Rain was nervous and panicky. She ran through the screens hoping to find clues about X. It was impossible for anything to survive a blast that had wiped clean everything within 20 yards of the van. Two distinct thuds were heard a while later, followed by screeching sounds. The first was a woman in uniform using a tough piece of hardened steel as a surfboard to break her fall and another was a much smaller object that fell quite a distance away. X was badly hurt. The determined look on her face made it obvious that this wasn’t her first time making lemonade. She manoeuvred through the obstacles in front of her, using speed and shadows to disappear without a trace.

X used the guise of a law enforcement officer managing road safety to gain access to the van. The road closure was absolutely critical in selling her story to the van’s occupants, who didn’t suspect a thing since all vehicles before them were being checked as well. She took out the 2 silver guards inside the armoured car while her 2 friends surprised the driver and the third silver guard using powerful sedatives. The athletic looking woman took the wheels, with the burly youth sitting beside her to avoid suspicion. X secured the four incapacitated bodies and the ‘package’ while they were on the move again. Having a blast was definitely not in her plans for the evening.

Rain felt a sense of relief wash over her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before investigating the second thud. She watched a projectile crash a few floors above the last spider’s location. She patiently waited for the spider to crawl up to the edge of the car park. A hardened briefcase lay on the floor between two unoccupied parking lots.

“That must be the real deal” Rain felt goosebumps. She had to have that briefcase at any cost. She could call X and inform her or she could go there and get it herself. Both options looked risky and time consuming. She had to find a way and act quickly.

Rain wasn’t interested in the war among the two groups in the sewers. The first group had shook off the surprise attack and managed to regroup to launch a spirited attack on the hooded characters. Having lost half of their side in the initial attack, they had resolved to take down as many people as they could while waiting for reinforcements. Things didn’t go their way but they managed to kill 20 of their attackers before losing the last man in the next 3 minutes. They did a celebratory victory dance to welcome the burly youth. The leader of the hooded group came forward and gave him a tight hug.

“Brother this has been the best gift you have ever given me. I don’t know how to ever thank you for this” the leader spoke in a cheerful tone

“Brother didn’t I promise to share all the good stuff with you” the burly youth replied in an equally cheerful tone

“That’s where we have a difference of opinion” the leader spoke before shooting the burly youth point blank, between the eyes. The disillusioned look on the burly youth’s face was further accentuated by the morbid laughter of the pack of wolves surrounding him.

“Let’s take a look at my riches shall we?” the leader instructed his minion to open the secured briefcase. The enthusiastic minion laboured to get the case open, only to set off another explosion, blasting the five hooded people to shreds. Two spiders monitoring the exchange were blown away as well, causing Rain to lose connectivity and blacking out most of her screens. Luckily for her the secondary controller kicked in, giving her two primary networks instead of one and restoring most of the screens.

Rain was already at the edge of her sanity after seeing so many cold blooded deaths in pursuit of something that was ironically labelled “life potion”. Double cross? Triple cross? Quadruple cross? Counting was futile. She felt compelled to try something crazy just to test if she was still sane. The sudden darkening of the screens had brightened her prospects. She had to face her fears if she wanted to get to the briefcase before anyone else noticed it. She remembered her car was parked a couple of blocks away. She immediately logged on to her service account and initiated remote vehicular control.

“I am definitely crazy” Rain shouted when she heard the sound of the car engine roaring, but quickly realised it was relayed by the spider hiding in the condensation pipe. Her fear gave way to excitement upon realising that the spider could be her eyes and ears! She repositioned the spider and reconnected the controller to the car’s navigation network powering its remote control. Engine roared, wheels spun and the car rolled out of the parking lot with a screeching sound. She tailgated another vehicle out of the carpark and started making her way towards the building. The road closure allowed her to drive in the opposite direction of traffic without raising many eyebrows. The crowd was building up around the accident site and she had to quickly get to her destination before it was cut off. She relished the challenge of navigating the sports car through the chaos, making illegal turns and passes while crawling through the crowd. She entered the building five minutes later and took the staff entrance to the car park above. She circled her way up to the briefcase’s location and drove over it to hide it from public view.

Rain still had to clean up and retrieve the spiders and controllers before they were discovered by the authorities. The loss of 2 spiders and relocation of the car had thrown a spanner in her works. She took some time to calm down before planning again. She had to establish connection with the spiders that had gone offline after the controller had moved out of their coverage area. The spiders on the second network were tasked to spread out and establish communications with their lost kin. 5 minutes later all the spiders, with the exception of the 2 that were destroyed by the explosion were reclaimed by the second controller. She took out the 3rd controller and synchronised it with the ids of all the spiders from the second controller. She could now use it to control the spiders when needed. All the spiders that were underground were instructed to move back to the location of the first spider at the entrance of the drainage pipe in the museum car park. The rest of the spiders were to maintain their positions for the moment.

Rain estimated that the spiders would take around 40 minutes to reach their destination. She could use the time to collect her car, the package and the rest of the spiders. She hired a private taxi to drop her outside the museum. The entire street had been barricaded and no vehicles were allowed inside. She used her phone to turn off the second controller, transferring the control of all spiders to the controller in her hands. “Little Toodle” was the first one to be extracted after she instructed it to jump off the aero bridge it was stationed under. Rain had precisely timed her arrival under the bridge and opened her bag right before the spider landed inside. Nobody would have suspected a thing even if it were done under floodlights. Three more spiders were collected in a similar manner. She retrieved the second controller and started walking towards the building where her car and the other 2 spiders were located.

Rain was disguised as a media crew, holding a recording device as she went about her business. It was easier to mingle in a crowd teeming with recording devices. It was also the only way to enter the area that had been barricaded by the authorities involved in clearing the bodies and wreckage. She had no intention to be in full view of cameras on her way out and decided to collect the rest of the spiders before collecting her car. 20 minutes later she collected them besides the fountain in the museum’s courtyard and proceeded to have dinner at her favourite food joint in the area, while waiting for the crowd to clear up. She was thinking about X when she received a message from her.

“Got your stuff. Can you pass me the spear tonight?” The message startled her. There was no reason for X to lie. She decided to meet up with her and get the full story.

“Having dinner now. Meet at my place in 30 mins” she wanted to write more but decided to rein in her curiosity for later.

When she arrived home 20 minutes later she knew X was already inside. She was seated on the couch, bandaged from bottom to the top like a mummy, still oozing blood. Rain was aghast to see her cousin in such a miserable state, she couldn’t find the words to express her horror.

“These are nothing. I have been through worse. Don’t give me that look. I’m alright” X spoke

“You need to get to a hospital right now. You’ll bleed to death otherwise” Rain pleaded

“No need for drama. I said I am fine. Here are your 200 life potions. Can you pass me the spear and the gold now?” X stated. She didn’t want to talk about useless stuff. Rain noticed that the briefcase she had in her hands was the same as one under her car at the moment.

“Not until you stop bleeding. Was it really worth it?”

“Like I said earlier there are many things beyond our control in this line of work. I don’t have the whole night. I need to go find someone”

“If that someone is the burly youth in your team, he’s already dead. I know you placed a bomb in his briefcase. Tell me what really happened” Rain’s response befuddled X. She had no idea that Rain knew everything that transpired that evening.

“I knew he had a plan to double cross me. I didn’t realise he’ll go this far and attempt to kill me. That bomb I placed wasn’t meant for him. If he blew himself up then it only means that someone extremely dangerous is on my tail right now.”

“You mean this guy?” Rain pulled out a still shot from her phone. The look on X’s face was a mix of shock and horror. She wasn’t scared of the guy in the picture but she was starting to fear Rain who had picked out every little secret of hers.

“He’s dead too” Rain didn’t wait for her response, “the bomb blew him to bits. Anyone else on your tail? If not, can you tell me the whole story?” X was at a complete loss of words. There was rarely a time in her life when she was unsure of what to say or do. She was one of those who always found a way to deal with situations but today she was frozen to the core. “What? Don’t trust me? You need proof?” Rain tried to thaw the tense atmosphere.

“He’s not so easy to kill. He’s always fully clad in armour and never lets his guard down” X spoke, expressing her reservations at the claim. Rain was forced to replay the entire clip of the events as they unfolded that night. It was obvious that this guy’s head was severed from his body when the bomb exploded in his face. The only time he let his guard down had claimed his life. Rain didn’t have to persuade X further. She blurted out the finer details of what transpired that day. The hooded guy was their sponsor and X had trouble believing that he tried to double cross the mission despite assurance of 400 bottles.

Green God Company was apparently trying to sell stock in the black market and had dispatched 1250 life potions instead of the declared quantity of 1000. X had prepared 2 briefcases so that all of the 3 parties involved could be given one each. She could only stuff 500 bottles in each briefcase since it was their maximum capacity. The other 250 were left in the original case. She planted a bomb to take out the party the burly guy was colluding with. She also left an anonymous tip with an overzealous investigative journalist so that the burly guy could be photographed with the original case and seen entering the sewers. That way she could easily hide the pilferage and shift the blame entirely on the unknown party. The sewer would wash down most of the fragments making it impossible to determine how many bottles had shattered. Sadly, she lost the second briefcase in the explosion and it would thwart her plans if it was found and returned to the authorities.

The local news network was currently singing to X’s tunes, flaunting a scoop over the identity of the person who stole from the Green God Company and exploded the van to destroy all evidence of his involvement, killing all his accomplices. There were reports of toxic levels of chemicals found within the sewer. They had conveniently left out the trail of bodies underneath to avoid spreading panic.

Both X and Rain had gained new insights into each other’s capabilities. Rain washed and dressed her wounds and forced her to rest for the next few hours to allow her body to heal. She left Rain’s house at 4 AM, dressed like a party girl in a costume to cover all her wounds and reeking of strong alcohol. Rain had passed her a secret key that she could use on the trading platform to redeem the legendary spear and 150,000 gold coins. She also told her that she would purchase the life potions from her over time.

At 7:30 AM, a limousine taxi with a high flying attorney in expensive clothing, entered the corporate building. The security posted outside didn’t even raise a concern for the fear of offending someone important. They were too preoccupied with the accident the night before to bother with an expensive sports car that entered the premises, for similar reasons. 5 minutes later the sports car left the premises. Rain knew that occupying two parking lots would definitely attract some attention, but entering and leaving the carpark at the dead of the night was outright suspicious.


	48. One Million Gold Bounty

System: A secret code assigned by you has been redeemed at the transaction center.

A lot had happened while Rain was away. The game forums were on fire. There were two words on everybody’s lips: Zero Wing! The guild was back to haunt its detractors and naysayers in most agonizing ways. The discussed the three new trump card legions that Zero Wing was setting up and its arduous selection criteria. There were talks about the battle arena being gutted by Vice Leader Snow and an unknown guild expert who was rumoured to take over as the commander of one of the legions. The sheer destructive power unleashed by the two was for everyone to see. Few tier 2 players died from after-shocks. The battle arena was closed until further notice and nobody seemed to care. 

Then came the mega shockwave of level 140+ dark gold set equipment appearing in the guild warehouse in large quantities for both plate armour and casting type users. Nobody had a single piece of level 140 equipment in the whole game so far and they had set equipment. What kind of guild was Zero Wing? While most of the super guilds wanted to dismiss this as mere advertising, they were dazed into septic shock when multiple reports from various spies corroborated the story.

Another tsunami hit them when Candlelight announced daily auction of level 140 dark gold set equipment to welcome all its new members. Advance members could buy 10 sets, existing common members could purchase 2 sets and new common members 1 set. Those who successfully bid for these sets would be given free access to Stone Forest City and 15% discount for all services offered at the Candlelight Commerce Hall for 30 days. A special, limited edition, invite only auction was announced for friendly first rate and higher guilds at the Candlelight Shop in White River City 5 days later. No further details were provided other than the requirement of 500,000 gold coins and 800,000 magic crystals refundable deposit needed to participate in the event.

Everybody was wondering why Zero Wing was being so generous. Did they need a lot of money quickly or was it just their way to celebrate the recent victories in Black Dragon Empire and Zero Wing City. They all agreed that Zero Wing’s enemies were definitely licking their wounds and shitting in their pants over the lost opportunity.

Rain and Bamboo were surprised by how much Lake Heart city had changed since their last visit. Rain was called into a meeting room where Snow and Minor Wind were waiting for him. Snow had already transferred 120,000 gold coins to Rain as a payment for the axe from her personal funds and promised to pay an additional 25,000 gold in future. She transferred 2 million magic crystals to her as payment for her reaper services.

“Before we start, I want to confirm if this is your doing” Snow passed her a top secret report she received moments ago. Rain shuddered when she read the document before her. Both tier 4 experts from Mythology and others present in the fancy restaurant in Zero Wing City were forbidden from logging into the game for the next 30 days, their mind spaces shattered and all their possessions including bag items had crumbled to dust. These players would further suffer from a weak soul state for the next 30 days when they resumed playing. Worst part was that their accounts couldn’t be deleted for the next 30 days. They were as good as gone for a long time.

“I was wondering what happens to those glass statues. I really had no idea it’s so awesome” Rain was at a loss of words. “Just to be clear it was a side effect of killing so many faux saint monsters. I still have a super sensory soul state and that’s why I need to wear shades”

“Mythology’s Cold Shadow has gone mad after learning of this and issued a 1 million gold bounty on anyone who kills Minor Wind back to level 0. Even he is tempted to do so and I don’t really mind if he does it after the legions are finalised” Snow laughed at Wind’s predicament.

“Excellent! We should quickly do that before forces beyond our comprehension have a go at it” Rain suggested. The bounty hunters at Andal had broadened her horizons.

“You sure? It’s a matter of our guild’s reputation” both Snow and Wind looked at her with disgust.

“Not if we are smart about it. He doesn’t need to die 126 times. We just need to milk him for growth type items, reduce his level as much as possible. If we play it right he might not need to die at all. He does the guild a huge service and gets 1 million gold at the same time. Everybody wins!”

“What do you mean by I don’t need to die?” Wind asked curiously. Rain had started seeing contracts in a different light after meeting Crawly. The contract would be deemed completed as long as its clauses were fulfilled to the letter. ‘Killing’ and ‘death’ meant different things to the system. Rain could kill herself over a thousand times without dying. She started explaining by reading out the contract aloud.

“Mythology guild places a bounty on Minor Wind, upper echelon of Zero Wing guild and current magistrate appointee for Zero Wing City. Minor Wind must be killed back to level 0. The first person to reduce him to level 0 will be rewarded with 1,000,000 gold coins.

Contractor: Cold Shadow, Vice Guild Leader, Mythology

Enforcer: Main God System”

“The only criteria to get the reward is to ‘reduce’ Minor Wind to level 0. Killing you isn’t the only way to get to level 0. We should get it done and over with before Cold Shadow realises her mistake and retracts or revises the bounty. We can breathe a sigh of relief and move on while people will see it as a slap on her face if he can get away without a single death” Rain explained

“Hey it's 126 levels you are talking about. You want me to lay waste to everything I have worked so hard for?” Wind complained. He really hated the idea of losing track of his plans.

“How much are you willing to pay to get those 126 levels back?” Rain gave him a knowing smile.

“If I win 1 million, I’ll pay you 500,000. How fast can you get me back on track?” Wind was sure Rain had a plan. She was the only expert who could power level him without attracting attention.

“Faster than you think but we’ll have to sign a confidentiality agreement since my methods are unique and a bit unconventional. How much EXP do you need to lose? Do you have any growth equipment you need to upgrade?”

“Losing 176,616,828,000 EXP will bring me back to level 0. I don’t have any growth items” Wind replied. Snow ordered Snake to gather all growth type equipment from the guild warehouse and players. After multiple mixes and matches they were able to identify a combination that would bring him to 5% of level 1. It was really difficult to breach the tiny 1000 EXP range between level 0 and 1.

Rain assured them that it won’t be a problem. Snow decided to award him 1 GCP per 1,000,000 EXP used to upgrade the items. Wind started pumping EXP into various items. His level started dropping like a waterfall. Rain stopped him for upgrading the last item that would bring him to 5% of level 1. They signed a confidentiality contract before proceeding and requested Snow to vacate the room for the next few crucial steps.

Rain drew “Experience Steal” hex on the floor and powered it up. Wind stayed inside the hexed area until he had enough EXP left to upgrade the final item and bring himself to level 0. Wind ‘reduced’ himself to level 0, staked a claim for the reward and uploaded a video sincerely thanking Cold Shadow for her generosity. He was amazed to find a system message confirming his claim and awarding him 1 million gold coins. He was overjoyed and informed both Rain and Snow that the nifty trick actually worked.

Rain used “Realm Creation Stone” to transfer 176,622,397,000 EXP to him, pushing him to level 127. Wind was so astonished after seeing a divine artefact that he stood frozen for a while after instantly recovering his levels. He transferred 500,000 gold to Rain and paid her additional 50,000 gold to purchase the items she had loaned him, and left the room after thanking her profoundly. Even Snow was startled to notice him at level 127 so soon after reaching level 0. She instructed Snake to return the equipment to their owners and placed a gag order on the entire episode. The forums were already burning after the bounty was announced.

Cold Shadow’s move was not one of anger or frustration. It was a cold blooded and well calculated move to drive the discussion away from Zero Wing. The million dollar bounty had paid rich dividends as forum discussions immediately changed their tone from one of appreciation and awe to that of pity and ridicule towards Zero Wing.

. . . .

“Poor Minor Wind. This world is really a cruel place. I don’t want to kill him but I hope he understands”

“You can never write off Mythology. They were absolute overlords long before you were born”

“What a twist of fate. I am so glad my name is not Minor Wind. I wonder where Zero Wing will hide him now. Maybe they’ll kill him themselves”

. . . .

When Wind released a video of him claiming the bounty on his own head, it reminded everyone that Mythology was still the boss without having any real presence in the eastern continent. Even Cold Shadow hadn’t expected that the bounty would ever be collected, especially by Minor Wind himself. She couldn’t even dream of such a wonderful outcome.

Her jubilation was suddenly interrupted by a feed from Zero Wing City. Wind had actually gained a level instead of becoming level 0. She had become a laughing stock among the crowd with many suggesting that she was a fraud and entire bounty and a speedy claim by Wind himself was fake news, only to garner attention and fame. She soon realised that she had been played and mercilessly beaten at her own game. She screamed like a maniac, smashed her hands on the table in front of her repeatedly until it shattered. All her scheming and plotting had blown up on her face and she had lost everything. She was so close to success yet every attempt at sealing her victory backfired. The harder she hit the deeper she got cut. It felt like the main god system itself was conspiring to defeat her in the most ruthless of ways. She wasn’t a fool like others to underestimate her enemies, yet her estimates had come short every time she tried to shake the pillar named Zero Wing that had stood firm against the most powerful of adversaries. It was true that she hadn’t unleashed the full might of the beast named Mythology on them so far. Most of that power resided in the real world and she had little to no authority over it. Those holding the chain of command would never relent unless the guild’s existence was under threat. Only thing she could do at the moment was to wait for an opportunity to present itself.

Wind returned to Zero Wing City. The entire crowd was shocked into a thundering silence watching the level 127 Ranger walking around the city. They had all viewed his video thanking Cold Shadow for her gold. Now they were utterly confused. Their mocking tone had suddenly switched to one of reverence when they realised that his words weren’t of gratitude but sarcasm.

. . . .

“How low can Mythology stoop? Losing eastern continent was not enough. They had to make sure they grind their reputation to dust as well”

“Cold Shadow lost too many things in a single night. Sanity was one of them.”

“If you belong to Mythology you should shoot yourself in the head right now. Why resort to such dirty tricks and expose yourself?”

. . . .

The game developers were flooded with complaints of security breach, content spoofing and other bug reports. They were forced to issue a statement that there was no tampering or security breach in the system and that all the events and videos were authentic. There were too many people who were bewildered by these statements since it was impossible for anyone to gain 127 levels within minutes. The sole conclusion was that Zero Wing was unfathomably deep and would do anything to make the best out of any situation.

. . . .

“Every time I think Zero Wing would do something logical they prove me wrong. They’re insane!”

“How quickly the tables turned. They baited Mythology by showering gifts on others and they fell for it”

“Minor Wind just placed a 1 gold coin bounty on Cold Shadow. Never a dull moment in Zero Wing”


	49. Blind

Rain started combat training with Snow in Lake Heart City. The day’s session focussed on attacking footwork. Rain was thrilled to learn the reactive footwork technique that Snow used multiple times during their duel. Snow shared the basic fundamentals and explained the steps involved in planning and execution of attack, withdrawal or counterattack. Rain struggled with the sheer amount of mental calculations, step counting and trajectory analysis needed to work the technique. The 3-steps ahead method required her to watch and analyse the fighting technique of her opponents to identify avenues of attack, counter attack and misdirection. Snow was strong in the first two aspects while Rain was a misdirection nut. Bluffing and double bluffing were her strong traits and their combination with the “movement before intuition” principle of realm of truths made it an extremely effective technique.

Snow’s tutorial taught her the method powering her madness during the duel. She learnt how to read the body language and breathing patterns of fighters. It was an integral part of analysis. Every fighter had certain actions they performed to increase attack power or speed during engagement.

Such training sessions were commonplace at the guild residence training grounds and a lot of members attended such events. Rain and Bamboo were pitted against Snake’s entire squad, armed with sticks and shields. All they had to do was implement the techniques they were taught and use footwork to attack or withdraw. Everybody in the squad was a core member in the 125-128 level range. It took them over two hours to start showing some results. Rain performed better than Bamboo after reaching the domain realm, however the difference wasn’t very evident since the battle was not very fast paced. Snake liked the way Rain would withdraw from one person only to attack another. This interpretation of the technique had broadened his horizons as well. He had no clue that she was a master of squeezing into tiniest of spaces between attack trajectories to neutralise them and counterattack.

Snow returned for an assessment six hours later. Rain was the only one to be able to land a hit on her among the group of 20 who engaged her simultaneously. This kind of training was very similar to psychedelic casket, only difference being that everything looked bleak in front of Snow’s combat standards. Snow took less than five seconds to land 10 hits on each of the 20 trainees and only took one hit in return. That was one more hit than her acceptable limit and it miffed her for a while. She ganged up with the rest to repeat the drill with a random challenger. Snake was the only one to last three seconds before taking 10 attacks and it was largely due to the special counterattack technique he formulated after watching Rain. Rain lasted slightly lesser than 3 seconds despite top notch evasive manoeuvres. She failed to capitalise on redirecting incoming attacks to another person and open avenues for escape in the process. She learnt that it was ok to catch a bull by its horns if its head could be redirected at a desired target. This was different from her typical approach of intercepting only those attacks that she couldn’t evade.

The next training raised the difficulty up by a few notches by introducing safe and taboo zones. One could only step on the safe zones to be in contention. Taboo zones were lava. The challenger was required to move and fight in a way that ensured an unoccupied safe zone circle existed within a step’s reach. If the challenger was surrounded they would take double the damage and would have to knock someone off their circle to create an escape route. Snow gave them a demo by constantly moving around and randomly picking targets to knock out. She explained her strategy and how she picked a target or direction. The rest had heard this many times but it was a brand new world for Rain and Bamboo. Snow left them to play by themselves and returned another 6 hours later for the assessment. She was astonished to find that Rain, Snake, Tiger and Pickle had almost broken through her strategy and choked her movements. She still managed to win after taking 5 hits.

Both Rain and Bamboo had their minds blown after the training sessions. They made sizable progress and decided to carry on with the training after Snake’s team was deployed on a mission. Bamboo was extra motivated since Rain promised her rewards if she didn’t slack off and took things seriously. She was doing pretty well for a first timer. Snow had commissioned these trainings based on her understanding of the realm of truths. It was the next best thing compared to the trial tower in the lost town. After another 8 hours of training with each other and other random participants they headed towards an extremely classy restaurant to unwind. They didn’t care about the jealous looks they were getting from the players nearby.

“Did you see the guard bowing to the lady? Makes me vomit blood”

“She must have recently become a count”

“Maybe she is a visitor from the imperial capital city. Lot of weirdos live there”

“I’m sure she will run away after looking at the prices. I’ve heard even the cheapest beverage costs 250 gold coins”

The restaurant only catered to nobility and their guests. You had to be a count or higher ranked to gain entry. Bamboo was bamboozled by the treatment Rain received inside the restaurant. A few noble NPCs had sought her out and tried to impress upon her to accept their quests or seek them out later for other profitable ventures. Rain had politely turned all of them down. Bamboo wanted to ask her the reason she was being treated like a queen but Rain changed the topic of conversation by commending her efforts and giving her a gift. Bamboo was over the moon on receiving a new pair of fragmented legendary ranked shoes. She puffed her chest and resolved to train harder the next day. They returned to the guild residence and retired into their guest quarters.

Meanwhile, Candlelight commerce had started its auctions in the Stone Forest City. The 20 level 140 set equipment pieces were snapped up by Shining Tiger and Unyielding Heart while the rest of the common members watched with envy. The first set was sold to Shining Tiger for 25,000 gold. Rest of the sets were sold for higher price with various smaller guilds and adventure teams raising the bids for fun. The last set went to Unyielding Heart for a whopping 35,000 gold. The smaller guilds were relieved after the big fish had maxed out their quota. 50 level 140 dark gold equipment pieces fetched between 3000 and 8000 gold coins. Everybody was raring to return for the next auction and try their luck.

Rain earned 700,000 gold coins after deduction of service charge and restoration fees from the sales during the auction, bringing her total earnings for the day to 1,370,000 gold. This amount would grow with every auction for the next 3 days and explode on the last day making Rain richer than some first rate guilds in the game. Rain however was pacing around inside her room. She was having trouble finding a solution to her biggest worry, her crystallizing gaze! Even though she stood out during the training sessions, she had gone through most of the proceedings with her eyes shut, trusting only her hearing, instincts and bodily sensations to score points. Being a domain expert had allowed her to fool everyone around her with the exception of Snow.

Her options were rather limited. She could isolate herself and wait for the super sensory state to normalise, gain more illusion affinity to help suppress and control the behaviour or exhaust it by crystallising enough targets. Determined to try something out she teleported straight into her private house at Zero Wing City.

Gaining levels was the quickest way to gain primary affinity. Rain decided to follow Wind’s footsteps and prepared to shrink to level 0. She took a deep breath and began implementing her plans. She pinched 85,664,574,200 EXP from the Experience Bank to allow her to gain just enough EXP to upgrade the bracers of jeopardy to fragmented legendary rank 11. She spent 461,320,312,500 EXP and 420,000 magic crystals to upgrade the bracers and reduce herself to level 0. She changed her affinity gain setting to Illusion element and pinched 691,980,468,800 EXP from Experience Bank bringing her to level 140 and gaining 56% illusion affinity, bringing her total affinity to 283%. She then pumped back the same amount of EXP and 800,000 magic crystals to upgrade the bracers to legendary level, reducing herself back to 0. She pinched another 1,304,481,800 EXP to bring her to level 40 and gain 16% illusion affinity. She changed the affinity gain setting back to Time and pinched another 374,351,256,570 EXP to bring her back to level 125 and gaining 34% time affinity. She now had 300% Illusion affinity, 269% Time affinity and still had 505,376,232,630 EXP left in the bank. She also gained 27 lives in the process.

After maximising her illusion affinity, it was time to find targets to crystallise. This was easy because she had forgotten something fundamental about her trip to Zero Wing City. Eliminating the faux saint monsters was not the reason she was sent back. Goddess of Chaos had given her a mission that she had totally forgotten about. She equipped the signet ring and received a message from the Goddess.

System: You have been tasked by the Goddess of Chaos to retrieve the Tome of Champions from the Dark Witch’s tower. Locate the secret hideout of dark witch Chezumra and retrieve the tome from her safe.

Rain felt the tips of her hair stand up after hearing that name. Even though she had killed Chezumra, she could never be sure if the witch was dead for good. There could always be a simulacrum or a soul fragment waiting to welcome her. She decided to visit the tower and face her fears.


	50. Evil Ritual

Rain teleported to the ruins of Dark Witch’s Tower in Orc Empire. It was the same place her guild had demolished using hell tanks. She had unknowingly arrived in the middle of a warzone. Orcs were fighting a losing battle against the faux saint army.

“What a great opportunity to let off some steam!” She cast invisibility and scanned the area to locate the person commanding the faux saint army. A Tier 4 evil NPC, exuding dense evil energy, was in charge of the invasion force. A glass statue was all that was left of him a few seconds later. One by one the monsters surrounding the NPC started to crystallise. The relentless assault came to a halt 15 minutes later. The battered orc battalion was frozen still, looking at 500,000 statues that glistened in the night sky. They were so spooked by the sight that they abandoned their post and ran for their lives.

Rain was disappointed that she hadn’t gained any EXP. She however, felt a lot more relaxed and in control of her soul state. After checking that she was finally alone, she cast an AOE spell to shatter the statues into fragments. She had maintained her invisible state throughout the operation since ‘Piercing Gaze’ was a passive ability. The soul crystals from the superior mythic monsters felt exceptionally powerful.

“Maybe I’ll find a use for them in future” she mumbled before collecting all the soul crystals. She explored the area for a while before examining it through the Void Atlas.

“The secret hideout is definitely well hidden” she sighed after failing to discover anything special. She started walking along the periphery of the ruins and found nothing of interest.

“I need a fresh perspective” she groaned in frustration. She launched her flight domain and flew 1000 yards above the tower. She was amazed by the sight below. The whole structure and the monoliths that surrounded it were shaped like a hex. She studied the alignment for a while before summoning her doppelganger and getting it to pump life force into the hex, hoping to find out its true purpose. The doppelganger cast “Elemental Awakening” to boost itself to Tier 5 and tried again. Only after using Lord’s Phantom to boost herself to Tier 6 and sacrificing 80% life force did Rain sense lights being activated from certain sections of the tower. The phenomenon lasted a few seconds before reverting back to its inert state. Rain finally understood what was missing.

Orcs weren’t spooked because of the saints turning to glass. It had something to do with the lore surrounding these parts. Every few hundred years the residents of the dark tower would suddenly disappear without a trace. Nobody had any idea about what happened to these people since none was around to tell the tale. This was also the reason why the Orc King had so willingly offered the tower to the dark forces in return for their aid elsewhere. Tonight they finally caught a glimpse of what could have transpired and quickly abandoned their positions, never to return. Rain knew she needed a lot of life force to activate whatever secret the tower was hiding and luckily for her a mammoth army of evil beasts was marching towards the dark tower. The reinforcements surveyed the warzone to look for their missing allies and decided to garrison inside the dark tower after finding it abandoned.

Rain watched nearly 1 million evil beasts put up barricades to secure the perimeter, set up patrol units and reinforce the remains of the pillars to deploy a basic defensive magic array. The evil NPCs that accompanied them were placing greyish orbs and evil god’s insignias around the tower. They were headed by a Tier 5 priest who was setting up a huge orb at the centre of the tower. They chanted spells to cleanse the whole area with evil energy, setting the insignia’s alight. A giant apparition appeared in the sky. It looked pleased with the preparations.

Rain was recording every moment of the strange ritual that involved the priests moving clockwise at the centre. The evil beasts lined up in a spiral wave like formation, moving in anticlockwise direction like blades of a fan. It seemed like the evil beasts were being drained of evil energy to fill up the huge orb at the centre. Dark electric fluctuations flew out of the orb and connected itself to the smaller orbs, filling them at a slower pace. Frightening amounts of evil energy currents flooded the ritual circle 30 minutes later. Two thick streams of evil energy raced in from different directions and connected with the huge orb. One stream came from Ancient Rock city while another seemed to be coming in from Star Moon Kingdom to the south. The giant apparition gave a nod of approval after noticing that the orbs were almost full and left the scene.

Rain knew that the ritual was almost over and it was time to act. Were these people trying to summon another evil temple branch at this location? She was determined to foil their plans. She summoned the doppelganger. It cast “Elemental Awakening” and “Lord’s Phantom” and flooded the area with its life force. The strange lights awoke from the monoliths once again and latched on to every evil beast and NPC in the area, sucking out their life force to feed a massive spatial vortex. The entire 1000 yards around the tower was devoid of life 15 seconds later. The bodies of the evil beasts and NPCs crumbled to dust, wiping clean any signs of their existence. With no one left to sustain the ritual, the huge orb cracked, releasing viscous evil energy into the spatial vortex. Hundreds of blood curdling screams were heard coming out of the vortex.

Even Rain couldn’t survive such huge concentrations of evil energy, she could only pity those who had to meet such a horrible fate. Experience Bank registered a huge spike when 1 million strong evil beast army and evil priests perished. A smaller spike was noticed after the screams were heard. She wanted to send her doppelganger down to investigate but was forced to hold on when the giant apparition returned to the spot, huffing and puffing in disgust. 20 cloaked figures emerged from the vortex. All of them had varying amounts of damages and were still losing HP due to corruption by evil energy.

“Beast Emperor! You’ll pay for this sacrilege” the leader of the team bellowed in rage. Rain could sense a familiar aura among the group that had emerged. It was one of the witches that was released from the Elder Staff. She couldn’t put a name or face to it. The witches rushed in the direction of Ancient Rock City that was the source of the apparition’s projection. Rain knew she didn't have much time left since the portal was about to close. Her doppelganger managed to sneak into it in the nick of time and disappeared. Lord’s Phantom form was the only one that could resist the evil energy corruption that was contaminating the area. The doppelganger found itself in another tower that looked and felt exactly like the Dark Witch’s tower. It activated “Teleprompt” and started exploring the area. “Life Support” had activated by the time it reached Chezumra’s chambers.

All of the tower's occupants were either dead or out for revenge. The doppelganger summoned two voidlings and started exploding the traps. It had activated all the traps 10 seconds later, destroyed all the safes and opened all the cabinets. Rain switched places with the doppelganger to collect the loot. She was forced to use “Elemental Awakening” and equip the ring of power to reduce her HP loss from 20% to 1% per second. She quickly collected the loot and checked the void atlas for the presence of any hidden rooms. She collected lots of affinity crystals, essences and other impressive items. She was disappointed that the tome she was looking for was nowhere to be found.

“Maybe this hideout is not secret enough” she thought to herself while preparing to return, however she stopped after sensing a tiny life force signature from deep below the tower. It was amazing that someone could survive the energy surge for so long. She immediately headed down to the basement of the tower and broke through the door. She was surprised by what she saw.


	51. Tier 5 Personal Guard

Rain found a lithe figure curled up in a foetal position on the prison floor. Her teary eyes were fixated on the prison’s ceiling, peering into the darkness, reflecting a mix of fear, anger, remorse and sorrow.

“Wu Lan. Why are you locked up here? Where is your elder sister?” Rain recognised the younger of the Starfire sisters. She helped to release them from the Elder Staff. The prison was the safest place to be in the tower since it created an elemental and spatial suppression barrier between the cell and rest of the tower. Wu Lan’s eyes shone with excitement, but swiftly gave way to fear. She must have been through a lot to be shivering and cowering at the sight of the witch who released her from eternal captivity.

“Have you come to finish me off personally and drain me?” She despaired.

“I came here on a quest. I would have come earlier had I known you were in trouble.” Rain responded calmly. She didn’t want to sound comforting or threatening since she wasn't sure how Wu Lan would react. “Could you please tell me what happened? You can see we don’t have much time left. We’ll die if we stay here”

“Then I’d love to die in peace. You don’t need to waste your time here. Go away”. That response shook Rain to the core. The magic arrays in the room were slowly getting corrupted by the evil energy. It was only a matter of time before they would give way and contaminate the area. Rain took out the rose shaped communication crystal Wu Lan had given her and put it on the floor in front of her.

“Then let’s die here together. I will never abandon a friend in need” Rain sat down next to her cell door. She could sense her fear and reluctance to trust another person. It was hard to believe that a cheerful and bubbly lady had turned into a broken wreck.

“Just cut the act. I know Kijlstra sent you here to track me down”

“She didn’t. Don’t you know I am the enemy number one of the Fallen of Augustus? Besides Kijlstra knows that if we ever meet again, only one of us would make it out alive. I trusted her and believed in her until I figured out that I was merely a means to an end. She would have killed and drained me already if I were powerful enough”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I have this” she flashed the signet ring and continued “I swear that everything I have told you is the truth. I believe you are aware of what happens to champions who lie under oath of their Gods” Rain knew she made up the last statement but it still seemed logical and had a profound effect on Wu Lan. The reason she had used the ring was to trigger the “Aura of Coercive Pacifism” and figure out the best way to approach the problem and it seemed to work.

“You need to promise me that you’ll kill Kijlstra and Spree”. Wu Lan continued to narrate how Spree had tricked the sisters into teaming up with the real Kijlstra to eliminate the envoys of Sin that were collecting witches from various realms to use them for some sinister purpose. They had no idea that they were sold for slaughter. Her elder sister sacrificed herself to save her from being drained, using all her residual power to open a portal and shoved her out of it. She wandered around for a while before discovering this place. She sought out Chezumra’s aid to avenge her sister, only to be captured by her instead. Chezumra wanted to drain her essence as well. The process resulted in multiple failures. Rain was gutted by the series of events that had happened to someone as cheerful and innocent as Wu Lan. She was angry at her elder sister for excessively sheltering her from the true nature of the world. It was impossible to believe that the shivering, cowering and weeping girl in front of her was a Tier 5 witch. A powerhouse!

“I would agree to you terms but I have something better to offer. Are you keen to join me and avenge your sister together? I am sure killing them with your own hands would be lot more satisfying than watching from the side lines”

“I am weak and useless. I can only wish to tear their hearts out with my bare hands but I know I’ll never be strong enough to do that” Wu Lan spoke in delusions. Her self-worth had gone down the drain in the last few weeks.

“A witch once told me that our power is not in our curses or hexes. It resides in our conviction, insight and judgement. If a Tier 3 witch like me could defeat Kapoornakh why can’t you face your fears and challenge the ones who have wronged you? I’ll give you a chance to stand on your feet and live your life on your own terms. Would you like to become my personal guard and fight along my side?” Rain asked sincerely. There was nothing much she could do other than give her hope and help her unleash her full potential. Wu Lan still had some apprehensions about Rain’s proposal but when she read through the contract she learnt that Rain had a lot more to lose by trusting her. She steeled herself and signed the contract. Rain unsummoned her from the prison before teleporting out of the tower and summoning her again. She was pleased to see her attribute panel.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Wu Lan] (Thoughtful Rain’s Personal Guard)

Class: Tier 5 Peak Class, Starfire Witch

Race: Celestial

Level: 152

Loyalty: 110

Growth Potential: 118

Alignment: Illusion [Primary: 400%], Space [Secondary: 328%]

Intelligence: 9,471

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If someone with such amazing statistics was weak and useless then the rest of the players should simply delete their accounts and do something else. Wu Lan was still in her shabby prison clothing and carried a common ranked staff. Rain tried to offer her some equipment but nothing could be used by her. Personal guards had the option to get custom equipment upon registration. They had to upgrade their equipment through questing. Sensing Rain’s dilemma she tried to change the topic.

“So what quest are we doing at the moment?” Wu Lan asked.

“I need to recover a very powerful tome from Chezumra’s hideout. I am yet to locate it and the evil energy is making it worse.” Rain explained. She suddenly remembered the 12 greyish orbs that were placed on the glowing insignias. The orbs were brimming with evil energy and could be sold in the black market for a good price.

“Are you looking for this tome?” Wu Lan took out the Tome of Champions and showed it to her.

“Holy Cactus! Where did you find that?” Rain exclaimed

“I may be a lousy witch but I am an awesome thief” Wu Lan had a proud smile on her face. She enjoyed watching Rain’s jaws drop in shock upon looking at the tome.

“You are totally awesome! Let’s head to Ancient Rock City and enjoy the show” Rain said before collecting the orbs and walking towards east, in the direction of the evil energy beam.

“I have some essences if you want to power up” Rain proposed

“I have never absorbed any essences before. It just felt wrong. Now I feel stupid for not doing so earlier. I could have helped my sister fight off those witches” Wu Lan spoke in a gloomy and dejected voice.

“That’s not stupid at all. If you have come so far without absorbing any essence then it only means that you are stronger than you think. While essences give you immediate power boost, they corrupt you from within. Stay clean forever” Rain stated. She had already guessed the reason why she could not be drained but decided to keep it a secret. “Do you know any other witch in the tower?” Rain was curious about the identity of the witch she saw earlier.

“I saw Salmoksha inside. She is definitely Kijlstra’s spy. I wanted to tell Chezumra about it but I kept quiet since she captured me”

“Where is Chezumra now?” Rain asked

“She is dead. The fallen coven has resolved to trace and kill the witch who killed her. Her killer was known to her but they have no clue who it was” Wu Lan stated. Rain was amused by the idea. She had flashed the ‘bracers of witchcraft’ to make her death look like some kind of poetic justice. She had no idea it would be interpreted in such a manner. Knowledge was power and power had to be abused. They were 5000 yards away from Ancient Rock City 10 minutes later. The 20 tier 5 witches were engaged in an all-out war with the Beast Emperor’s forces numbering over 5 million. The city’s defensive arrays were still intact and offensive arrays were firing evil energy bolts from time to time.


	52. Ancient Rock City Destroyed

Beast Emperor was troubled by the sudden turn of events. It was supposed to be his moment of glory. Yet he was having a terrible evening. He lost all the faux saint monsters under his command. His sacred ritual was compromised through a poor choice of location. Finally, he unleashed an unknown and well-hidden powerhouse upon himself. Things couldn’t get any worse than they already were. This was not a battle he couldn’t win. He spent 250,000 evil god’s temple contribution points to rally 50 tier 5 NPCs to his aid for an hour. He wanted to finish this battle quickly.

“Which side are we fighting against?” Wu Lan asked.

“Both of them are our enemies. Let’s wait and watch for a while” Rain replied. It was their first time watching witches fight a large-scale war. The witches were better organised and deadlier of the warring sides. There were no tanks, melee or healers in their formation. They strategized their attack and defence with lures and hexes. They didn’t have to work very hard as a simple provocation was enough to lure the melee evil minion army into their traps. The melee warriors were crippled by hexes the moment they entered within a certain range, creating a body barrier between them and other units. Attacks from Tier 5 evil NPCs and other ranged attacks were deflected onto the body barrier, reducing it into a body pile. Melee NPCs fared slightly better and managed to land a few hits before being trapped in elemental and illusory spaces.

Some witches broke formation from time to time to engage melee units with furious affinity attacks in an attempt to buy their compatriots enough time to channel large scale destruction spells and curses at tier 6. The humongous piles of bodies of evil beasts and demons was a testimony to their battle prowess and spoke volumes of their finesse. They mass teleported to a different location in the battlefield the moment the enemy numbers became overwhelming and repeated the attack pattern. This battle technique inspired Rain to commission her own band of sisters. She was recording every part of it for future analysis while waiting for the doppelganger cooldown to reset.

The battle entered a stalemate 10 minutes later. The witches were out of spells and were tottering around 30%-50% HP range making them focus more on hexes, traps and combination combat techniques. Even the Tier 5 evil NPCs were forced to defend by the sudden change of approach. The evil monster and evil demon army had dwindled below 1 million and only the strongest of them had made it this far. Beast Emperor sensed that attrition was starting to set in and ordered all his forces to attack relentlessly without caring about the costs. He had lost too much in a single night and losing Ancient Rock City would have bankrupted him. Luckily for him reinforcements had arrived from various evil god temples and were gathered inside the city.

Rain knew it was time to act. It was her best chance at sneaking into the city and wreaking havoc from within. Everyone was gearing up for the final push to wipe out the witches and had no time to tackle her.

“I’ll leave the witches to you. Do not attack them until they are surrounded. It would be ideal if you simply block their escape route and let the evil monsters finish the job. Buy me a few minutes of time. Don’t kill them off too quickly” Rain instructed Wu Lan before summoning the doppelganger. It used “Elemental Awakening” and equipped the ‘ring of power’ and ‘ring of undying soul’ to push itself to Tier 6 and improve its survivability in the evil energy rich environment. The doppelganger teleported to a deserted defence tower at the centre of the city.

The city’s magic array suppressed the doppelganger by 25%. The evil energy environment was leeching its HP at a slow rate. It chose a sweet spot and started dual hexing “Experience Steal” and “Bewitched”. The silent nature of the hexes ensured that nobody was aware of the attack even after the hexes were released on the rear lines, incapacitating them. All the heavily packed locations like watch towers and city ramparts were peppered with one hex pair after another.

Pins and Needles + Life Drain

Air Spray + Energy Drain

Head on Pike + Six Feet Under

Killing Fields + Silent Degradation

The evil beasts and demons were having a tough time pinpointing the location of the enemy. It was only after the doppelganger cast “Particulate Corrosion” that they managed to locate her. All of them ran towards the tower to intercept the intruder. Little did they know that they had already fallen in the doppelganger’s trap. When the crowd converged at the base of the tower they were hit by “Phantom Labyrinth”, the same spell that Wu Lan had gifted Rain. Over 200,000 defenders had been trapped inside the labyrinth while another 500,000 were crowding outside it.

The doppelganger switched places with Rain. It was her turn to hex. She had one final look at her captive audience before starting the massacre.

Power Pace!

Power Boost!

Particulate Corrosion!

Total Obliteration!

Two Million Pricks!

Predator Mode!

Gravity Domain!

Void Rampage!

Entangling Roots!

Acid Rain!

Mana Burn!

Icicle Shower!

Armageddon!

The entire 4000 yard area around the tower transformed into a hellish landscape due to the affinity boosted AOE spells and debilitating hexes. Rain quickly blinked below the watch tower that was raining arrows and spells at her and used “Levitation Slam” to smack its occupants 50 yards above, to the ground, stunning them. She used “Phantom Labyrinth” to block the defenders outside from rushing in through the south entrance of the city. She promptly swapped positions with her doppelganger who had morphed into the death reaper persona using “Handy Mode” and “Lord’s Phantom”.

Beast Emperor was notified about the attack inside the city after the first spell was cast. He however paid no heed to the lone wolf attacker and instructed his minions to handle the situation. He was forced to detach himself and his mighty force of evil monsters and NPCs when the city started to burn 15 seconds later. The witches outside didn’t allow him the luxury to leave so easily. He had no choice except sacrificing almost 500,000 troops to distract the witches while he swiftly made his way to the city. He was shocked to the core at the sight of the Death Reaper casting one AOE spell after another and burning the city down.

“Esteemed Lady. Please stop destroying my city. How have I ever offended you?” Beast Emperor pleaded with the death reaper. The doppelganger finished casting all its AOE spells by the time he managed to get past the labyrinth. The whole city was on fire.

“Let this be known to everyone. This shall be the punishment for those who fail to pay me on time.” The reaper bellowed in rage. She launched “Void Domain” and activated “Teleprompt”, zooming from one spot to another. Level 160 Tier 5 void creatures started popping out wherever she went. She had summoned over 500 Tier 5 creatures by the time she was done. These creatures quickly overwhelmed everyone around them.

“Tell Dust Edge that I’ll kill him and shatter his soul into tiny fragments if he dares to show his face again” the reaper announced before disappearing from the scene. There was no reason for her to attack Beast Emperor and weaken her plot. His fate however was already sealed.

Beast Emperor was too astonished to react to the situation. He couldn’t fathom why Dust Edge was so foolish to make such a deal. All this while he believed it was an elaborate ruse to split the Saint’s Hand Alliance. Now he was sure that Dust Edge was indeed planning to overthrow him behind his back. That treacherous bastard had gotten himself sealed and transferred his troubles to him. Only a few hundred of his massive 10 million army still remained. They were quickly being massacred by the rampaging void beasts.

The evil god’s temple branch was summoned inside the city magistrate’s building. This was the only branch whose location was known publicly within the game. Every other structure had been pulverised to dust. He had no clue why the creatures had no interest in the most important building in the city. He didn’t have much time to speculate. Five witches who survived the ordeal barged into the city and placed him under a soul sealing hex to punish him for eternity. The witches didn’t manage to last much longer after Wu Lan ambushed them with a soul crusher hex and started exploding them one by one using spectral flames of death. The chaotic battlefield suddenly fell silent.

30 minutes later a platoon of 5000 players wearing a six wing emblem closed in on the city. They used mana pulse cannons and gnome cannons to flatten the remaining structures to the ground. It was impossible to go near the city due to evil energy contamination.

Orc Empire Regional System Announcement: Zero Wing has destroyed Ancient Rock City. City can be reconstructed by any player who obtains the city token and retains it for 2 hours.

Orc Empire Regional System Announcement: Zero Wing has demolished a branch of Evil God’s Temple in Orc Empire. Rewarding 50,000 Guild Popularity, +1 Town Building Order, +1 Advanced Construction Design and +1 Advanced Construction Promotion Order.

Orc Empire Regional System Announcement: Zero Wing has banished Evil God’s Temple from the Orc Empire. Rewarding 500 humanity reputation points to all guild members within Orc Empire.

The last announcement amazed everyone in the game. All zero wing members in Silverwing City became Barons overnight, some had become Viscounts. All its members burst into celebration wherever they were. Those who had been procrastinating about joining the guild were cursing and swearing at the wasted opportunity. Enemies of the guilds were sulking once again. Those that actively colluded with Beast Emperor were even more fearful of being found out. Everybody had finally understood why Evil God’s temples were so well hidden and all members and apostles were contracted to never disclose their location. All major superpowers in the game initiated various task forces to locate and destroy the Evil God’s temple to grind for reputation points.


	53. SSS Rank Evaluation

Nine Dragons Emperor was sulking at the wasted opportunity. He had been watching the battle at Ancient Rock City through a magic mirror. Zero Wing appeared at the scene after the battle was over and stole the glory. “Damn you Zero Wing! You dogs are only good at stealing other people’s achievements. Soon your luck would run out” he bellowed, smashing his hands on the table.

“I think we should share the video with the rest and prove to everyone that Zero Wing is a fraud that basks in other people’s glory” Martial Dragon suggested.

“No need for that. Send the faux saints monsters over there and salvage the Beast Emperor’s treasury. I’m sure he hid that item there. Zero Wing you just wait!” Nine Dragons Emperor bellowed.

Unknown to him, quite a few superpowers caught wind of the battle at Ancient Rock City and dispatched scavenging units stationed at Silverwing City to run through the loot. They were painfully aware that Zero Wing had already cleaned up the battlefield. Their only hope was to brave the evil energy contamination and salvage the drops from inside the city. The death reaper had suddenly emerged from the shadows and pulverised a city. Merely thinking about the army of tier 5 creatures she unleashed sent shivers down their spines. They all wanted to work with the reaper but had no idea how to contact her. They were also curious about the cloaked NPC that blew up Beast Emperor’s enemies like popcorn.

. . . .

Rain arrived at the adventurer association in White River City. She was here to register her Tier 4 rank and her personal guard. The players burned with envy when the guard captain personally welcomed the cloaked lady and whisked her away to the second floor VIP reception. Even the 4-star adventurers who prided themselves with the VIP services they availed were shell shocked when Senior Administrator Lorrain stepped out of her desk to welcome Rain and courteously brought her into a private meeting room.

“Lord Adventurer. It’s a pleasure to meet you. How can I be of service?” Lorrain asked.

“I need to complete my Tier 4 registration formalities and I want to register my personal guard. I would also request that our identities be kept confidential” Rain stated.

“We fully understand. Please wait here for a while. Our boss would like to have a word with you as well”. An NPC beauty walked in with drinks and refreshments. Adventurers waiting in the queue outside were flabbergasted at the sumptuous welcome the duo received.

“These are nice! Can we come here again? I have never had such wine before” Wu Lan was at her childish best. Rain felt like she was hand holding another Blue Bamboo. She just shook her head in response. Lorraine walked in with a crystal ball and asked Rain to place her hand on it. The crystal ball glowed in bright golden light and stabilised a few seconds later. Lorraine was looking at it with amazement and confusion.

“Lord Adventurer. Could I confirm that you wish to register yourself as Tier 4?” She asked sheepishly.

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

“Your reading shows Tier 5 strength” Lorraine clarified, looking even more confused at the clueless looks Rain was giving her. “Did God Mode activate?” she thought but it wasn’t the case. Still clueless, she was startled to find a tiny mana thread connecting her to Wu Lan. It was too thin to be noticed without active mana perception.

“Wu Lan, stop it right now. This is not a game” she yelled. The NPC only burst into laughter and complained “You are no fun”. Lorraine was thoroughly confused. She hadn’t sensed any buff or domain spells while standing next to Rain, yet she had tiered up! She herself was now curious about the identity of this cloaked lady. Rain was shocked to learn that Wu Lan could launch a domain. She was just a bundle of surprises, albeit a bit on the naughty side.

“Let’s try again” Rain spoke to Lorraine in an apologetic tone. This time the reading was correct, though still on the 90-100% band, indicating an apex Tier 4 core. Lorraine was still unsettled by the whole episode and was scared of approaching the childish lady in front of her, fearing she might play a trick on her as well. She had no intention of irking the only known 7-star adventurer. Rain sensed her dilemma and spoke on her behalf.

“Wu Lan, your turn to place the hand on the crystal ball. No more tricks ok?”

“Okay. You really are no fun” Wu Lan whined. The crystal ball got too hot and started blinking a while later. A soft screeching sound indicated some form of a warning message. Before Rain could scold her again she immediately pre-empted her. “It’s not me. I have no idea what is happening either”. Lorraine freaked out and quickly left the room to calm her breathing. She only relaxed when she saw Dark Magus Glynne coming over. Glynne immediately rushed over after sensing her panic. They entered the room together and reset the crystal ball that was giving off a warning signal. He went into crisis control mode.

“Could I check if your personal guard is human? These equipment might need some calibration for other races” he spoke very softly.

“I am a Celestial. I am not from around here. Will that be a problem?” Wu Lan asked. Her disclosure had freaked out the 2 NPCs who looked at each other, looked at Wu Lan, looked at Rain and finally looked at each other again, trying to make sense of the situation. Glynne finally broke his silence.

“All personal guards are required to have an adventurer rank. We do not have the means to accurately measure your suitability for an adventurer job. Would you prefer a trial of strength instead?” he politely asked.

“Sure. Let’s get it done and over with” Wu Lan answered. Everybody left the private room and moved towards Glynne’s personal training room. They waited for him to finish the test preparations.

“From this point onwards you’ll face mechanical constructs every 50 yards. Once you defeat the construct you can move forward. The greater the number of constructs you defeat the higher your rank. You’ll be required to use our basic equipment kit for the test and can use any skills or spells you have learnt. Let me know when you are ready” Glynne explained as the rest of them watched. Lorraine had tagged along since she was curious about this mischievous lady.

Wu Lan entered the chamber after swapping into the test equipment. She tapped her staff on the ground that unleashed a rift that wrecked the entire training room, sending one mechanical construct tumbling over another for the entire 500 yard stretch. She waved her hands and tapped her staff again, unleashing a powerful explosion in the middle of the mechanical construct pile, flinging the heavy mechanical constructs in every direction. Spatial spears converged on the flying projectiles and impaled them on impact. Only one monstrous construct stood in her path after the first barrage. It charged at her with all its strength but couldn’t get far. A spectral spear shot forth from the magic array behind it and pierced through its chest. Spear’s head exploded moments later, blowing the construct into smithereens. The test was over within three seconds. Wu Lan didn’t even have to move an inch forward. Both Glynne and Lorraine were aghast at the monstrous destructive power this timid and mischievous lady had displayed. Wu Lan looked at them and instinctively bent her neck to the side to check if she passed. The clueless look on Wu Lan’s face sent shivers down their spine. Even Glynne needed 20 seconds to reach the final construct and hadn’t been able to clear the final hurdle so far.

“Definitely SSS rank evaluation. I’m sure if the measurement apparatus wasn’t destroyed in the explosion it would have displayed the same result” Glynne was almost correct in his assessment. The measurement had already gone beyond SSS and had hung there for the lack of a further rank before it was blown to bits. “Spatial Rift”, “Starfire Burst” and “Disintegration Spear” were the three legacy spells she used to blast Glynne’s personal training room into rubble. Almost every legacy spell in Wu Lan’s arsenal was a two stage attack and involved explosions of some kind.

They walked back to the private room to continue their discussion.


	54. Legendary Necromancer Byrne

Glynne was busy assessing the damage and repair expenses of his training room when he received a message from the magistrate. Lorraine was guiding Rain and Wu Lan through the final steps of the registration process.

“We’ll prepare personalised epic set equipment for Wu Lan. It should be ready in a day’s time” Lorraine said while completing the registration procedures.

“Is it possible to prepare legendary set equipment instead?” Rain asked. Lorraine hurriedly shuffled through the documents in front of her and produced a price sheet for legendary equipment. Rain asked Wu Lan to pick a set that would be most compatible to her, however she was too busy counting the number of 0s in the price tag.

“Don’t bother with these. I can do some quests and upgrade my equipment over time. That’s more worthwhile than throwing your money over these labels” she spoke with a look of amazement and reverence in her eyes. Rain however was not bothered about the costs. She had just received another 400,000 gold after 25 level 140 armour set equipment were purchased by guild members using their GCPs.

“Don’t bother about the cost. We have a lot of things to do. You can do your quests after I have completed all the tasks on my list. Just pick one that suits you the best” Rain clarified.

“In that case I’ll pick this one. It will boost my power and enhance my affinity spells as well” Wu Lan replied, pointing at the Star Splendour 8-piece legendary set armour that was made of stardust crystals and infused with astral fragments. Rain’s jaws dropped upon reading the set’s description and features. This set was obviously meant for higher humans.

“That would be 480,000 gold. You’ll need to personally visit Royal Godsmith Timberulu at Star Moon City palace for customisation and binding procedures” Lorraine informed them.

“I choose this staff as well” Wu Lan pointed towards a growth type Epic staff having an ordinary description and feature list. The only exciting thing about the staff was its name “Timeless Brilliance”. Nobody was interested in paying 20,000 gold coins for an ordinary looking piece of epic equipment. Rain wanted to suggest something else but relented after noticing the glow of excitement in Wu Lan’s eyes. She obviously knew more about this staff than all the appraisers in Star Moon Kingdom.

Rain paid 500,000 gold, thoroughly stunning Lorraine who wanted to offer her an instalment plan. They set up an appointment with the Royal Godsmith for the next afternoon. Both the staff and the armour could be picked at the royal palace the next day. Glynne approached them with an invitation from Magistrate Weissman. A carriage was waiting to bring them over to city hall.

. . . .

“Lord Adventurer. I am glad to make your acquaintance” Weissman was waiting for them besides the fountain on the top floor rooftop. Another cloaked NPC was seated next to him.

“Magistrate Weissman, I am sure you invited me here for something more important than that. Shall we get straight to it?” Rain answered in a polite yet firm tone.

“Indeed. You are probably aware that Evil God’s temple in the Orc Empire was razed to the ground by a guild from our kingdom. Evil God has tasked his champion to raise a legion to wipe out this kingdom. They’ll summon the Evil God’s doppelganger and start the invasion in 7 days’ time. The only way to foil the invasion is to locate the Evil God’s temple in Star Moon Kingdom and destroy it” Weissman explained the reason for the sudden invite.

“Why do they need 7 days? No summoning takes that long” Wu Lan blurted.

“They need to sacrifice evil creatures to fill a summoning pool with thick viscous evil energy. They can only sacrifice a limited number of creatures every day. Our estimate is that they would sacrifice 6 million creatures over the next 6 days to prepare the pool” the cloaked NPC stated in a heavy voice.

Rain’s intuition and eye of dark seer were disturbed by the presence of this cloaked NPC. Rain found it weird that the cloaked NPC was hiding behind an illusion of a cloaked NPC. This could only mean impersonation but she refrained from acting in presence of Weissman and Glynne who were both Tier 5. What surprised her was that Wu Lan had suddenly connected her with another thread from her domain, covering her in a thin energy barrier, while casually walking over to this cloaked NPC. She was pondering over what “Illusion” really meant to a witch with 400% illusion affinity.

“Ooh! Nice to make your acquaintance creepy guy. Why are your hands so cold?” Wu Lan forcefully took his hands and shook it wildly, shattering the illusion he was hiding under and surprising everyone.

“Fools! Your fate is already sealed” the cloaked NPC bellowed as he flew some distance away. He flung a basketball sized dark orb on his captive audience before disintegrating into thick black smoke and disappearing from the scene. Wu Lan took action even before Weissman or Glynne could respond and opened a spatial portal in the path of the orb, teleporting it elsewhere. Rain was stupefied when the Experience Bank registered a small spike a few seconds after the portal closed. Wu Lan had teleported the orb to Ancient Rock City, thinking it would be abandoned due to evil energy contamination. She had indirectly killed over 100,000 faux saint monsters that had just finished devouring the experts from various superpowers, who were toiling in the dark, collecting drops. The grand lord ranked monsters sustained over 80% critical damage and were quickly gobbled by the mythic ranked monsters to replenish their HP before fleeing from the scene. Martial Dragon was not so lucky and his signet ring dropped on the spot after his body turned into particles of light.

“Thank you Lady Wu Lan and Lord Adventurer for saving our lives. I’ll be eternally grateful for your aid” Weissman bowed to express his gratitude. He knew he’d have survived the orb’s destructive power, but the same could not be said about 10 million people within the 5000 yards area around city hall. Anybody below tier 4 would have instantly turned to ash by the power of destruction, the orb contained.

“You are welcome. I would prefer if you keep this episode a secret to avoid mass panic in the city. Who was that Byrne fellow? He felt evil” Rain asked.

“He is the Legendary Necromancer, the most wanted criminal in Star Moon Kingdom for the past 15 years and ironically the Chief of Military Intelligence of Star Moon Kingdom” Weissman’s head hung in shame at the last part of the sentence.

“We cannot ignore his warnings. The evil god’s disciples have been sacrificing evil beasts to collect evil energy. They were intending to summon the doppelganger irrespective of what happened in Orc Empire” Rain clarified.

“But why would he warn us in advance and ask us to attack his own people?” Glynne asked

“Too simple. He will summon the doppelganger, lay his traps and announce the location of the temple after finishing his preparations. He plans to lure the entire army of Star Moon Kingdom and finish them off in one fell swoop. His evil minions need to feed on the bodies of powerful soldiers to grow stronger and evolve further. Our dead would bolster his ranks and even the War God temple won’t be able to stop them from consuming the whole kingdom” Rain explained

“The King must be notified immediately. We need to prepare for war” Glynne stated the obvious, trying to comfort himself.

“Please do that immediately and I’d need a battalion under my command to be ready to march on the Evil God’s temple by tomorrow afternoon. I also need the War God’s temple's aid. Could you arrange that Magistrate Weissman?” Rain spoke resolutely.

“I’d suppose you know the location of the temple already?” Weissman asked

“Wu Lan and I will locate it by tomorrow afternoon. Don’t worry we got some tricks up our sleeves” Rain spoke with absolute confidence. She didn’t have a location but she had a clear direction thanks to the energy beam she observed during the sacrificial ritual. Together they would be able to uncover and disable all illusory traps and barriers in their path.

“The King confers Lady Wu Lan the title of Count and City Protector for saving White River City from certain destruction. I shall wait for you at the royal palace tomorrow afternoon. I wish you luck on your endeavours” Weissman spoke before watching Wu Lan open another spatial portal to the Dark Witch’s Tower.


	55. Star in Star Moon Kingdom

“That was so awesome” Wu Lan declared.

“You are the awesome one! What did you steal from that creepy guy?” Rain asked with a knowing look on her face.

“You mean this Ring of Reflections? This is super awesome. I can be anyone I wish to be” Wu Lan chirped and slowly morphed into a replica of Rain, amazing her and making her laugh out loudly.

“I am the death reaper. You shall bow before me” she switched into the dual wielding phantom lord's avatar and laughed hysterically.

“I was asking about the stuff you pinched from his bag” Rain’s question shook her out of her revelries. She looked at Rain with amazement. Her pickpocket skill was powered by her massive illusion affinity. She could search and pick one item from anybody’s person without them realising they had been robbed. Only a powerful perception ability could see through her illusory technique. She used ‘snatch’, a secondary ability of her skill class to forcefully take the ring from Byrne. Anybody at the scene could see it happening, yet she was so good at sleight of hand that even the party getting robbed couldn’t notice it. The snatched item would drop if she died within 2 hours of the theft. She was thinking of all kinds of mischief she could do when Rain called her out.

“Erm. It’s a tablet fragment. [Fourth Fragment of Evil God's Tablet] (Epic Rank Item). I thought it was some awesome combat technique tablet. Apparently it’s quite useless” Wu Lan spoke in a disappointed tone. She handed it over to Rain like a kid returning a stolen sweet.

“It’s just the thing we need right now. However we need evil energy crystals to make it work. I know a place that is full of them” Rain said pointing towards Ancient Rock City.

“Can we go back to the Dark Tower? Some of my belongings are still there”

“Sure. But after returning from Ancient Rock City. This tablet can grant us evil energy shields that will allow us to weather the contamination better” Rain clarified. Both set on towards the shattered city that was reduced to rubble by Zero Wing’s war weapons and later burnt to ash by the destruction orb. Rain used the summoning bell for the first time to call forth the Void Shadow Hawk. The majestic level 140 beast was both invisible and soundless at night, making it a perfect tool for assassinations. They were hovering over the city’s ashes five seconds later. Destruction energy had thinned the evil energy contamination in the area. They collected all the evil energy crystals and cores they could find and the drops from various scavenging teams throughout the city. Somewhere along the way Rain picked up the city token while Wu Lan picked up Martial Dragon’s signet ring. Her face was all smiles when she figured out its purpose.

“I’ll be back” she informed Rain before running off towards the thickly forested area to the north. Rain had already wrapped both of them in shields that were extremely effective in the evil energy environment. She was too busy examining the damage from the blast that lay bare even the most secretive and highly secured facilities inside the city magistrate’s hall. It was possible that even Beast Emperor was unaware of the shafts that lead to an underground system of tunnels. Rain had Youlan send over 100 miners and 2 battalions of guards to clear the mounds of ash and gravel that blocked her path. She decided to continue exploring while waiting for the miners to arrive. She searched the void atlas for a safe spot and blinked inside.

The tunnels were devoid of life. There was not even a trace of evil energy in the environment. Blind vision allowed her to see as far as the tunnels went. A tranquil and surreal environment basking in pure beams of light welcomed her when she emerged from the tunnel exit. It felt like a dream world, yet everything was real. A magnificent temple comprising entirely of light stood above a giant stone pedestal at the centre. She walked among the floating lights, playing with them along the way. A giant vortex of light broke forth about 20 yards from the entrance of the temple. An elderly spirit walked out of the vortex and blocked Rain’s path.

“Lord Adventurer and Champion of Chaos, this is the altar of Starlight Saint Sun Kuan. Only those who walk his path are allowed to enter this holy place” the spirit could decipher Rain’s identity even with Voidwalker’s Cloak equipped. This only meant that the spirit was more powerful than he made out to be.

“Greetings Lord Dmitri. I was drawn to this holy place’s power. Please forgive my intrusion and my ignorance. Could you tell me how one walks the path of Venerable Starlight Saint?”

“You will have to find the answer yourself. The last one to walk his path laid the foundations of a Kingdom not far from here. That should give you a clue about where to start”

“Thank you Lord Dmitri. I shall take my leave now” Rain bid farewell politely and slowly walked back into the tunnels. She had just learnt where the ‘Star’ in Star Moon Kingdom came from. She was sure Gentle Snow would be excited to learn about it. Her Holy Warrior legacy definitely came from a fragment of Starlight Saint.

Back in the tunnel, Rain was all alone and away from prying eyes. Experience Bank had collected over 7 trillion EXP due to millions of higher level monster kills, experience steal and reaper’s share. She decided to upgrade the “Voidwalker Staff” while maximising her affinity boost. She started by pinching 2,424,964,887,000 EXP from the stone to bring herself to level 184 and gained 22% time affinity. She then upgraded the staff to legendary level 1 by pumping 2,800,620,625,300 EXP and reducing herself to level 0. She then pinched another 3,080,682,687,900 EXP to bring herself to level 187 and gained another 74% time affinity, exceeding her time affinity by cap by 65% and receiving an affinity stone for equal value. She upgraded the staff to legendary level 2 by pumping another 3,080,682,687,830 EXP, immediately dropping back to level 0. She pinched another 375,655,738,370 EXP to revert back to level 125 and gained a 50% time affinity stone. She finally switched her affinity gain setting back to the Illusion element. She still had 1,820,339,710,000 EXP left in the bank but it wasn’t enough for the next upgrade. Attribute and damage bonuses of the staff didn't rise to her expectations. Summoning skills of voidling and void domain saw phenomenal changes with the tier cap increased to apex Tier 5. The duration had increased by 15 minutes and 30 seconds per upgrade respectively.

Satisfied with the results, she took out the affinity stones she looted from Chezumra’s hideout and started absorbing them. She attained 150% affinity with Darkness, Light, Death, Electric and Magnetic elements, 145% affinity with Life element and 200% affinity with Space, Fire, Water, Air and Earth elements. She was certain that results of elemental poisoning would be fun as long as her elemental affinities exceeded that of Chaos. Among the items she looted the most promising was a white pearl that glowed like a beacon.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summoner’s Stone (Lesser Legendary Ranked, Tool)

Chezumra crafted a series of tools to shorten the time needed for most of her mundane work. This stone is the 3rd item of the series and deals with creation of summoning scrolls.

Scroll Technique: Summoning Scroll

Allows the user to create a summoning contract with another entity. Summons are controlled by standard contracts that define the nature and duration of the activity. The creator of the contract must pay the contractor in advance for the contract to be sealed.

Technique Skill 1: View Available Contractors

Check out all entities that are willing to sign a contract, their basic profile, skills, charges and type of contracts they are willing to sign. You can enter into an open contract (no expiry or additional conditions) or a limited contract (by time or other conditions) with a contractor after paying for their services in advance.

Note: Only transferable contracts should be used for summoning scrolls. You can still create a summoning scroll for non-transferable contracts but they will be bound to you at all times.

Duration: 30 minutes

Cooldown: 8 hours

Cost: 500 magic crystals per contract + contractor’s remunerations. There may be additional charges for certain contract types.

Technique Skill 2: Create Summoning Scroll

Cast a summoning contract onto a scroll for easy usage, distribution or sale.

Cooldown: none

Cost: 50 magic crystals per scroll.

Using this tool does not improve your crafting skill proficiency.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rain immediately used “View Available Contractors” skill to browse the list of contractors available. There were lots of Tier 1, 2 and 3 creatures that demanded basic items like magic crystals, attributed crystals or gemstones. There were hundreds of Tier 4 entries with some having more complicated demands like equipment, mana stones, energy and magic cores etc. The cream of the crop was a Tier 5 Greatsword Saint that demanded 50 drops of water of life, 500 magic cores and 100 mana stones and 50,000 magic crystals for one hour of summoning. Rain was happy at the latest money minting opportunity. Tier 3 and 4 scrolls were still in high demand and would continue to be until guilds built armies of tier 4 players.

She also found an awesome lesser legendary staff, “The Setting Sun” that offered powerful healing, rejuvenation and resurrection spells. She decided to pass it to Bamboo after she cleared her Tier 4 challenge. She found 10 Tier 3, 3 Tier 4 and 2 Tier 5 legacy spell books for witches. She had enough affinity to learn all of them. She returned to the surface after taking stock of the items.


	56. New Base of Operations

The scene outside was comical. A group of 100 lifestyle players was surrounded and protected by an armoured team of 500 players. The circle was slowly closing in towards its centre with 95 mythic, 20 high mythic and 2 superior mythic faux saint monsters tightening their encirclement of the doomed group. Wu Lan was controlling these monsters. She disguised herself as Beast Emperor and was giving the players threatening looks. She was trying to act tough and menacing. However, behind the illusion she was laughing hysterically with her hands on her mouth, at the sight of the shivering players that could drop dead anytime due to fright.

“Enough goofing around. These players are friendly. I called them here” Rain commanded

“Yes boss!” Wu Lan stated and commanded the monsters to brush really close to the group before dispersing.

“Fools! Your fate is already sealed! Enjoy your last few days. Muahahaha!” Wu Lan's words spooked the players enough, to make them shit in their pants. Some of weak hearted lifestyle players dropped to the ground in a fit. They were thoroughly shaken, though still alive and unhurt. Rain sighed and shook her head at the antics. She wrapped the players in the shields and gave them specific instructions. After ensuring everything was in order she summoned the Hawk and took off in the direction of Dark Witch’s Tower.

“You are really sadistic. Was it worth scaring those people to such an extent?” Rain asked

“Come on! It was fun! Besides there were a few people watching from the shadows so it was necessary to keep up with the appearances. They seemed to have bought the script” Wu Lan responded with a huge smile on her face. They teleported to the Dark Tower for another round of search. They uncovered a series of trap doors that hid in plain sight using a mix of light, shadows and optical illusions. For the next 30 minutes they raided Chezumra’s treasury and other storage cabinets hidden at various places within the tower. Wu Lan had recovered and equipped all of her stuff after toppling a few more cabinets. She looked like a peasant earlier, now she had an aura of a princess.

Rain was convinced that there was more to this place than was visible to the naked eye. Chezumra was a master of puzzles and traps. One treasure chest had accidentally revealed itself when they stood on platforms with matching artwork. A couple of traps revealed themselves in a similar manner but were mitigated through a mix of intuition and skills. They wanted to spend more time here but the thick evil energy environment was quickly draining their shields. Rain was satisfied with their haul so far. She found two more stone tools. She also pocketed a rare Tier 5 super-spell book, a couple of Tier 5 hexes, legacy epic set armour for witches, 2 lesser legendary legacy staffs for witches, several equipment pieces, stashes of attributed gemstones and crystals, mana stones and assorted materials from various realms. She passed the epic equipment set and a staff to Wu Lan, who could use all legacy items. Rain kept the other staff. This would be her go to staff during public appearances, a perfect foil to keep her reaper identity hidden.

The most promising item was a crystalline chest that left afterimages when moved and pulsated when touched. It felt alive. Rain held back her curiosity and stored it for the moment. She wanted to check out the tool stones. The first one was crimson red and shivered on touch.

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Bloodhex Stone (Legendary Ranked, Tool)

Chezumra crafted a series of tools to shorten the time needed for most of her mundane work. This stone is the 4th item of the series and deals with creation of scrolls of hexcraft.

Scroll Technique: Frozen Hex

Allows the user to structure the hexes into scrolls, allowing them to be cast like a spell at a later time. Storage time for frozen hexes varies depending on complexity of the hex and mana used to freeze them. The amount of mana used to unfreeze a hex is same as the amount used to freeze it.

Technique Skill 1: Appraise Hex

Evaluate a hex that you have learnt to determine the materials and quantities needed to create a scroll. Skill tier of the witch performing the appraisal will determine the tier of the scroll.

Cooldown: none

Cost: 1000 magic crystals (basic). Could be increased depending on the hex being appraised

Technique Skill 2: Freeze Hex

Draw a hex on a parchment and fuse it using the required materials to create a hex scroll. Typically hex scrolls can last 30 days. Expiry can be extended by using 100 magic crystals for each day.

Each scroll requires 100 magic crystals to be cast unless its expiry has been extended beyond the default time. Non-witch classes will sacrifice 1.5 times the HP when activating the hex through a scroll.

Cooldown: 5 seconds

Using this tool does not improve your crafting skill proficiency.

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The second stone felt sinister and filled Rain with rage when held.

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Essence Stone (Legendary Ranked, Tool)

Chezumra crafted a series of tools to shorten the time needed for most of her mundane work. This stone is the 1st item of the series and deals with draining essences from witch’s bodies.

Special Technique: Essence Drain

Project a mana powered ritual circle to contain a witch and drain her essence. The witch’s HP must be maintained below 10% for the entire duration for this stone to work.

Technique Skill 1: Sacrificial Ritual

Automates the preparation of ritual circle and necessary cleaning operations to prepare a witch for sacrifice. The witch is restrained using an earthen and illusory binding hex for 30 seconds. Upon success an essence stone can be removed from the witch’s dead body.

Cooldown: none

Cost: 200,000 HP + 1 mana stone per tier of the witch being sacrificed

Technique Skill 2: Disintegrate Essence

Shreds the essence stone and reconstitutes it into individual affinity streams. This method is extremely wasteful but creates pure element affinity crystals

Cooldown: 5 seconds

Cost: 1 mana stone per essence

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“Are you going to destroy that?” Wu Lan asked. She was shivering at the sight of the stone.

“No. This will be the fate of those who drain other witches for the kicks” Rain eyes had reddened with rage at the thought of Asara’s essence collection.

“This will be our new base of operations. We’ll find a way to purge the evil energy. Let’s go! We have a temple to raid” Rain declared


	57. Best Laid Plans

Wu Lan’s casual warning while disguised as Beast Emperor had convinced the spectating superpowers that the loss of Ancient Rock City had no effect on the Evil God’s temple’s plan to invade Star Moon Kingdom. They ordered their subordinates to divest of their investments, pack up and leave before it suffered the same fate as Purple Thorns Kingdom. Two shady characters were busy purchasing these investments at 30%-40% discounts. They had purchased huge chunks of plots, shops and various structures in multiple cities across the kingdom. Four hours and 750,000 gold coins later they sat inside a fancy restaurant in Star Moon City.

“Aren’t we taking a huge risk? What if the kingdom falls to evil god’s forces? All our plans will be ruined”

“Don’t worry. I trust Zero Wing will save us all. No matter how massive the challenge, they always come out on the top. Black Flame is the most trusted brand in these parts. He always delivers. It would be a sin if we don’t profit from it”

“Whatever you say boss Red Feather. I really hope it turns out well for us”

A similar conversation was going on, on the top floor of another high class restaurant, not far away from them.

“Zero Wing will not abandon this kingdom. This is not a war they can survive without major sacrifices. The only question is how much will they suffer”

“Black Flame is not here. He might have defeated a few mythic faux saint monsters but he surely cannot survive an army powered by Evil God’s doppelganger. Even though the doppelganger cannot leave the temple, its range of influence covers most of the kingdom. Every evil beast and evil demon within range will be automatically tier up by one or two minor tiers and gain a perpetual berserk state. You really think too highly of Zero Wing vice leader Cold Shadow”

“I have my reasons. Our intelligence reports indicate that Black Flame and his forces should be back after 4 days. Star Moon Kingdom’s forces should be decimated by then. In the worst case scenario he should be able to eliminate 60% or more of Evil God’s forces before perishing. We must remember our purpose is taking control of Zero Wing and not its destruction. Once Zero Wing has expanded all its resources in the war, the faux saint army will move in and beat them into submission. This way we control Zero Wing and take over Star Moon Kingdom, and we also claim the jackpot the Demon God has promised” Cold Shadow explained.

“Wouldn’t Zero Wing claim the jackpot if they defeat the Evil God’s doppelganger?”

“Black Flame can summon Tier 4 heroes, Tier 4 personal guards and other Tier 4 beings. Even an army of Tier 4s can’t stand up to the doppelganger’s might inside the temple. At best they can push the beasts and demons back into the temple and ensure that the doppelganger is contained there. Only faux saint monsters are capable of entering the temple and destroying the doppelganger”

“Why don’t we find the Evil God’s temple and destroy the doppelganger ourselves? It would be in a weakened state until it absorbs all the evil energy from its summoning pool. Do we really have to wait till it announces its existence with a crippling energy beam?”

“Over a million faux saint monsters are currently on a lookout for the temple’s location. They will be summoning the doppelganger tomorrow night and that would be our best chance to discover it.”

“What if the death reaper interferes with our plans?”

“She is a mercenary not a saviour. Demon God has given me something to seal Black Flame. I won’t hesitate to use it on her if she tries to cross my path again. All we need to do now is to wait for good news” Cold Shadow proclaimed with a sumptuous and prideful smile.

Star Moon Kingdom System Announcement: Zero Wing has demolished the main branch of Evil God’s Temple in Star Moon Kingdom. Rewarding 150,000 Guild Popularity, +1 City Building Order, +1 City Upgrade Order, +1 Peak Construction Design and +1 Peak Construction Promotion Order.

Star Moon Kingdom System Announcement: Zero Wing has banished Evil God’s Temple from the Star Moon Kingdom. Rewarding 500 humanity reputation points to all guild members within Star Moon Kingdom.

The announcements repeated 3 times ensuring everybody had heard them.

Shock and horror flooded Cold Shadow’s table while the rest of the tables cheered. Their intelligence reports had never been so wrong. The war was over even before it started. Their hopes and dreams were shattered. Frankly their intelligence wasn’t incorrect, it had merely become obsolete a few hours ago thanks to Rain’s unintentional meddling.

. . . .

Legendary Necromancer Byrne had his plans disturbed twice. The harvesting ritual was interrupted and his identity was exposed. The third time was guaranteed to be a charm! He was forced to advance his plans to prevent any further mishaps. He led a team to a nearby star tower and sacrificed a million mythic evil beasts to collect the final set of evil energy orbs required for the ritual. He was busy instructing the priests to prepare for summoning when he received an alert informing him of over 100 faux saint monsters running straight towards the temple’s northern entrance. He had been extremely busy these days, creating illusions to distract faux saint monsters who ventured near the temple, and lead them astray. He was having a tough time with the latest batch since they had no qualms about attacking and revealing themselves. They methodically tore down the illusions he conjured. He wondered how the monsters became so intelligent overnight. His indulgence was disturbed by a chirpy voice calling out to him.

“Hey creepy guy. Why did you never leave your number? You really love to make a lady chase after you!” Wu Lan was at her cheesy best while fluttering high above him. Byrne was no stranger to duels and sensing another Tier 5 didn’t overly concern him. He took a fighting stance and prepared to faceoff with the superior mythic monsters heading his way and their master. His spell casting was disturbed when an “Elemental Prison” attempted to shackle and enclose him. He was livid with himself for failing to register the threat from above. Void Shadow Hawk had a passive ability that allowed it to merge with the sky while gliding. It became invisible at night and appeared like a dark cloud, floating in the sky at day. Wu Lan used her domain to boost Rain to Tier 5. She hid her life, mana and soul signatures to evade detection. She was meditating with her eyes closed when she arrived before Byrne, seated in a lotus position atop the hawk.

“Fools! You think these chains will hold me forever?” Those were the last words he spoke before turning into a glass statue. Rain had gained sufficient control over her soul state and it gave her a limited control over her piercing gaze. She was busy focussing her soul energy into a single attack for the last few seconds. She didn’t escape its effects either. Losing a lot of energy in a flash left her in a weakened state. She collapsed on the shadow hawk and lost control of the prison. Byrne’s body fell to the ground and shattered. Rain regained consciousness 15 minutes later. One of the mythic monsters had consumed Byrne’s soul crystal and started evolving while she was knocked out. She tasked Wu Lan to distribute 150 soul crystals to every mythic, 300 crystals to every high mythic and 500 crystals to both the superior mythic monsters. All 95 mythic monsters evolved to high mythic and five high mythic monsters evolved to superior mythic. Rest of the monsters became stronger and unlocked additional abilities.

Rain left the group to explore the area. She moved around slowly, cautiously avoiding detection from hundreds of evolved mythic and superior mythic evil beasts she encountered along the way. She took her time to study the movement patterns and composition of the evil demon patrol units. She could see the ramparts of a mini fortress that sheltered the temple. These monsters could hold any army long enough for the temple to deploy its security measures. The attack had to be swift and brutal to allow them to penetrate inside the temple premises, before they had a chance to deploy a defensive array.

She found a safe spot to use “Nether Crow Form” and split into scout crows to infiltrate and study the temple complex. She was overwhelmed by the security detail and mesmerising geometrics of the temple architecture. Each of the outer, middle and inner courtyards had their own ramparts and accommodated individual defensive and offensive arrays. The courtyards were crawling with evil beasts and evil demons. This place was built to sustain long periods of siege battles. The sanctum was heavily guarded by a mix of high demons and superior mythic evil beasts. Rain was unable to find a way to enter the sanctum without risking discovery. She returned and looked for Wu Lan to discuss their battle strategy.

“We can take over the temple if we are able to evolve all these monsters to superior mythic rank” Wu Lan chirped. She reviewed the site drawing and crow cam footage Rain provided and formulated an attack plan.

“Details?”

“We will teleport inside the outer courtyard with these monsters. I’ll hold the outer courtyard and peripheral monsters while you and your doppelganger zoom through middle and inner courtyards and flood them with void beasts. This way they won’t have the opportunity to deploy the defensive and offensive arrays against us. We can overwhelm them with force and take out the majority of their defences before we assault their sanctum” Wu Lan explained.

“Risky but cool plan. It’ll be fun to launch double domains! However, the domain skill is on cooldown for the next two hours. Let’s hope these monsters finish evolution in the meantime” Rain was ready to solo it out with her powerful domain. There was no danger of exposing the reaper inside a highly secured and hidden environment. The support from monsters would be a bonus. Wu Lan opened a portal to the tunnels beneath Ancient Rock City to prepare for the showdown.


	58. Elemental Affinity Toolbox

Wu Lan distributed 500 soul crystals to each of the 110 high mythic monsters, triggering their evolution. She had less than 200 left on hand. The superior mythic monsters were given 5 soul crystals each from high mythic monsters and 2 soul crystals each from superior mythic monsters that Rain crystallised outside the dark witch’s tower. The soul crystals were akin to essence for a witch, strengthening and revitalising the faux saint monsters, comparably faster than devouring bodies. The auras of these monsters became so stifling that both Rain and Wu Lan were having difficulty breathing in their presence.

“Can boost me up to Tier 5?”

“Sure” Wu Lan was curious about Rain’s request. She connected a domain thread to boost her. Rain cast “Elemental Awakening” and boosted her to Tier 6. She equipped “Ring of Power” for the minor tier boost and used “Rapid Cooldown”. She used “Elemental Awakening” again to push her to apex Tier 6. She nodded at Wu Lan excitedly, cheering her up. She needed the double berserk state to push her life rating high enough for the next step.

Summon Voidling!

Two menacing adult dragons answered her call. They would follow her command for the next 3.5 hours. She wanted to repeat the summoning after its cooldown 55 minutes later. A fast, furious and fool-proof approach was required to overwhelm evil god’s temple defences and destroy the structure. Nothing fitted the bill like an adult dragon.

“I need to find another source of soul crystals. I have a feeling two of these superior mythic monsters might break through the glass ceiling and evolve into God ranked monsters if they feed on high power soul crystals” Rain sighed. She was in full control of her super sensory soul state and knew that she only had enough juice to crystallize 5 to 7 superior mythic or Tier 5 targets. She remembered the crystalline chest she found in the dark witch’s tower and decided to inspect it. There was only one item inside the chest and it glowed in 19 different colours. Rain spent 2500 magic crystals to appraise the item.

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Elemental Affinity Toolbox (Divine Ranked Artefact, Legacy Tool)

Class Restriction: Witch

Current life force storage: 1,854,680,258,956,000 HP

The toolbox uses life force to power itself. The tool’s abilities depend upon the life force it has accumulated. Only the skills supported by stored life force are displayed. Skills list may grow as you collect more life force. Any life theft hex can be used to store HP into the tool. Some of the skills may be used on a non-witch target at double the life force cost.

Toolbox Native Hex: Death Burst (Peak Tier 4 Hex)

Plant a hex on a 50 yard circle sacrificing 1,000,000 life force. Death mana bursts through the targets within the hex area, draining 5% of maximum HP per second for 30 seconds. 50% of the drained HP will be transferred to the tool.

Life drain effects would be weakened by 25% for every target tier above the spell tier. Dark creatures and undead suffer higher damage over time due to reduced resistance to death mana.

A spatial portal may be opened to allow the life force to be transferred @ 10% cost of transferred HP.

The circle can be expanded by sacrificing additional 500,000 life force per yard.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 6 hours

Requirements for hex tier:

Tier 4: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [100% death + 75% life + 50% space].

Tier 5: Tier 5 or higher witch, Affinity [200% death + 150% life + 100% space + 50% time].

This hex will automatically upgrade to the higher tier if requirements are met.

Tool Skill 1: Purge Curse

Analyse and purge curses. The toolbox recognises most of the ancient curses. Purging a curse may result in the target dropping levels or tiers depending on the tier and type of curse.

Cost: 10,000,000,000 HP. Cost may vary depending on the curse.

Restriction: Can be used twice per tier.

Tool Skill 2: Repair Elemental Channels

Analyse and repair elemental channels that have been damaged or corrupted.

Cost: 50,000,000,000 HP per channel. Cost may vary depending on the repair requirements. Running repairs on a healthy channel will strengthen it by 10% to 15%

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Tool Skill 3: Extend Elemental Channel Capacity

Extend your elemental channel capacity by 100% of base. Channel must be at full affinity to qualify for extension.

Cost: 1,000,000,000,000 HP per channel. Cost may vary depending on existing affinity cap. You may need to repair the channel after extending its capacity.

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Tool Skill 4: Upgrade Elemental Bloodline

Upgrade your bloodline and its associated skills by one rank.

Cost: 10,000,000,000,000 HP. Actual cost may vary depending on the number of elements enriched by the bloodline and existing rank.

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Tool Skill 5: Reset Secondary Elemental Alignment

Resets the alignment of your secondary element. You can choose another element to align yourself.

Cost: 50,000,000,000,000 HP per channel. Cost may vary depending on the affinity of the current secondary element.

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Tool Skill 6: Create New Basic Elemental Channel

Add a new elemental channel for a basic element of your choice with 100% base capacity. Creates an empty channel.

Cost: 100,000,000,000,000 HP.

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Tool Skill 7: Create New Supreme Elemental Channel

Add a new elemental channel for a supreme element of your choice with 100% base capacity. Creates an empty channel.

Cost: 1,000,000,000,000,000 HP.

Restriction: Can be used only once per tier.

Drops upon death.

This stone was crafted by Helena, the Goddess of Death, to cure and purify the elemental channels of her daughter Silisa, Hero and Witch Queen of the Realm of Death. Silisa’s relentless conquests saved the realm of death from certain destruction at the hands of Ancients and their marauding armies, hungry for eternal life. The conquest ended in a definitive battle when Silisa killed three Ancients with her bare hands, releasing the Goddess from their captivity. The other Ancients retreated swiftly after two more of their allies were incinerated by Helena’s wrath. Silisa suffered severe afflictions due to the curse of the Ancients, reducing her to a cripple and driving her into fits of self-destructive madness. Helena couldn’t save her despite her best efforts. Silisa ended her life before she lost the last shreds of her sanity and became a danger to everyone around her.

This tool was stolen by Chezumra from the coven of Silisa. The coven decreed her a fallen and vowed to hunt her down to the ends of the realms.

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Rain’s heart was pounding loudly while reading the description of the divine artefact. She finally understood what transpired at the dark witch’s tower. Asara would have set the whole realm on fire to gain a new supreme element. It was likely that Chezumra wasn’t aware of this skill either. The sacrifice of 1 million mythic evil beasts had pushed the life force storage to insane levels. It was unlikely that this tool would help with her “Elemental Poisoning” problem. Chaos element was too new to be manipulated through a divine tool.

Rain started absorbing affinity crystals and stones from the latest haul. Illusion, Time and Space were already at their maximum limit. She was still a long way from maximising her affinity. She gritted her teeth, took out the Essence Stone and started shredding her stockpile of essences using “Disintegrate Essence”. She worked like a mechanical construct, laboriously feeding the essences to the tool and watch it chip away the essence into pure mana streams. She decided to bite the bullet and absorb the resulting affinity stones. She knew she was exploiting a loophole but it didn’t matter since the source of various affinity stones and crystals she absorbed earlier was questionable as well. She finished maximizing all her affinity 30 minutes later. Only Void and Chaos remained at 0 and 125% respectively. She used “Rapid Cooldown” to reset her spells.

Something inside her head was pricking her all this while. She spent another five minutes pondering over the problem before embracing the madness within. She held the toolbox tightly in her hands and launched the skill

Create New Basic Elemental Channel!

There was no point in letting the 250% worth of ruin affinity crystals go to waste. The process wasn’t even half as painful as Chaos channel creation. Ruin and Chaos were sister elements like Void and Darkness. She finished absorbing 100% worth of crystals 5 minutes later.

Extend Elemental Channel Capacity!

She spent 1,000,000,000,000 HP for the ruin channel, 3,000,000,000,000 HP each for fire, earth, water, air, light, darkness, life, death, electric and magnetic channels, 4,000,000,000,000 HP for space channel and 6,000,000,000,000 HP each for illusion and time elements.

The process completed without any issues. All the channels were extended by another 100% capacity after 15 minutes. She absorbed the crystals for Illusion, Time and Ruin to maximise her affinity. The gap between Chaos and the rest was too big for her comfort.

She took a break to summon 2 more adult dragons. She was nervous about the next step. She was praying for an unlikely miracle.


	59. Champion of Evil

Rain knew it was time to test the waters. She exhaled deeply and steeled herself.

Repair Elemental Channels!

She spent 100,000,000,000 HP for ruin channel, 200,000,000,000 HP each for fire, earth, water, air, light, darkness, life, death, electric and magnetic channels, 300,000,000,000 HP for space channel, 600,000,000,000 HP each for illusion and time elements and 200,000,000,000 HP each for Void and Chaos channels.

As expected the tool didn’t work on the Chaos channel. It skipped the Void channel as well and continued to strengthen the rest of the channels for the next 20 minutes. It picked up the Void channel again and required additional 2,000,000,000,000 HP to repair it. The process went on for another 10 minutes. The void channel was finally repaired, though it was empty as before. Rain was pleasantly shocked when she inspected her mana body. The toolkit had routed the Void channel farther away from the Chaos channel. She used “Rapid Cooldown” to reset her spells again. She pumped her fists and launched the final upgrade for the night.

Upgrade Elemental Bloodline!

Rain was stumped to find 200,000,000,000,000 HP cost for upgrading the bloodline. She went ahead nonetheless. She received a system notification 20 minutes later.

System: Elemental Affinity Toolbox has upgraded bloodline “Whispers of Antiquities” to Tier 2. You have unlocked a new bloodline ability at Tier 2, “Antiquity Shroud”. Tier 1 ability “Affinity Trade” has been upgraded to Tier 2. Refer to your bloodline panel for details. Bloodline has successfully absorbed the essence of Ruin. Maximum affinity cap for Ruin has been increased by 100%.

System: Elemental Affinity Toolbox will attempt to use your bloodline to repair the Chaos elemental channel.

10 minutes later.

System: Elemental Affinity Toolbox was unable to repair the Chaos elemental channel. The toolbox has successfully registered Chaos as a new supreme element and gained compatibility with it. You can use it to repair the elemental channel after tier change.

“Gosh! Everybody wants me to upgrade to Tier 5” Rain sighed. The toolbox looked slightly different and glowed in 20 colours. She summoned two more dragons bringing the total to six.

Two hours were up and faux saint monsters’ evolution was almost complete. Rain used the time to learn the “Death Burst” hex. She was amazed by the sheer amount of life force the hex required. She was startled by the seemingly infinite range of this hex. It was obvious that open and reckless usage of this hex was a clarion call to the coven of Silisa to track down and eliminate her. Rain used another round of “Rapid Cooldown” when the monsters finished evolution. She checked out her bloodline ability in the meanwhile

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Affinity Trade (Bloodline Affinity Skill Set - Tier 2)

Supported Supreme Elements: Illusion, Time, Space, Chaos, Void

Supported Basic Elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Light, Darkness, Life, Death, Electric, Magnetic and Ruin

Affinity skill 1: Chaos-Void Exchange

Trade affinity between chaos and void elements at 50% conversion rate. You won’t be able to use any bloodline skill for up to 24 hours after the exchange.

Cooldown: 24 hours

Affinity skill 2: Trade Inverse Basic Elements

Trade affinity between inverse basic element pairs at 65% conversion rate.

Cooldown: 2 hours

Affinity skill 3: Create Affinity Stone

Release any amount of affinity from your chosen elemental channel to create an affinity stone.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

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Affinity Shroud (Bloodline Affinity Skill Set - Tier 2)

Affinity skill 1: Mana Shroud

Increase mana density around you by a factor of elemental affinity for every element supported by your bloodline.

All silence debuffs are suspended for the duration of this skill.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

Affinity skill 2: Tertiary Alignment

Temporarily boost an unaligned element to tertiary alignment gaining natural control over it.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 2 hours

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The new skillset wasn’t very helpful for Rain. Her learnt spell and hex list was too disorganised to fully display a witch’s power. It took her a while to fully understand the concept of elemental alignment and how they boosted spells and hexes. Apart from “Elemental Awakening”, a generic spell, she hadn’t learnt any spells from her legacy skills menu. Luckily for her she still had almost 400 legacy skill points for future use. She looked forward to unleashing her full power after becoming a Chaos witch. She wanted to learn as much as possible about witches and combat before she took that step.

Everyone was ready to move out in another 15 minutes. Wu Lan teleported them 8,000 yards away from the temple compound. Anybody would cover in fear in presence of 117 superior mythic faux saint monsters and 6 adult dragons. The evil god’s temple’s complex had over 50 times the number of Tier 5 forces. Rain and Wu Lan flew atop the gliding hawk, monitoring the situation below. It was easy for them to see through the illusion of a thick forested area below.

The ground situation had changed drastically. Byrne’s death and subsequent failure to revive through a resurrection stone had startled the evil god’s forces. They reinforced their numbers and entrenched themselves within the temple compound. The gates were sealed shut. Most of the patrol units had stationed themselves outside the ramparts while the rest had thinly spread out with a single purpose of raising an alarm if they encountered an enemy. Rain’s forces would have been surrounded and decimated the moment they teleported inside the temple courtyard. Their original plan would have laid them to waste.

Rain however had a different reading of the situation. Packed places were a witch’s hunting grounds, especially when they had access to a mega large scale hex! Rain had to make sure she got her timing right. She simulated every step of her plan in her head before summoning her doppelganger. Wu Lan boosted both of them. They cast “Elemental Awakening”, equipped the rings and used “Rapid Cooldown”. They used “Elemental Awakening” again to further push themselves to apex Tier 6, followed by “Power Boost” to ensure that the hex will be powered at Tier 6. The doppelganger further cast “Lord’s Phantom” and “Handy Mode” to boost its attributes to insane levels.

They dual hexed “Experience Steal” and “Death Burst” and powered them at different sections of the temple defenders. They channelled the hexes draining over 96% of their HP pool to extend the hex to 5750 yards. The amazing geometric shape of the compound allowed her to cover the area up to 1000 yards outside the ramparts. All the patrol units were well within range of the hex.

As expected, “Blood Fury” had reset all their skill cooldowns. With “Life Support” passive ability active, they cast “Earth Mother’s Touch” to fully restore their HP. The evil forces were too deeply entrenched in their pits with nowhere to run. The attack had caught them by surprise and they had no clue about the identity and location of the attacker. Confusion ruled the roost with alarms blaring from every section of the temple compound. This was an unprecedented large scale attack and yet there were no signs of the attackers. Over-tiered hex drained 9%-11% HP per second from creatures of darkness. Over 5 million forces perished before they had a chance to erect defensive and offensive arrays. Only those with invulnerability skills survived the first 15 seconds. Most of these evil forces didn’t manage to remove themselves from the temple grounds and lost their lives before the 30 seconds of the hex were over.

Wu Lan opened a portal to the entrance of sanctum for their monster army to make a grand entrance. 100 high demons emerged from the entrance to greet them. Wu Lan and the doppelganger flew down to take charge of the monsters while Rain directed the dragons from the background. The doppelganger added two more dragons to the mix and started casting every summoning spell she had access to. She finally cast “Elemental Chain Link” on the frontlines and joined the battle. Rain analysed the situation from the background for a while. She was busy collecting souls of superior mythic monsters and high demons to feed the eye. Tier 5 souls were rare and she wasn't going to miss out on such a golden opportunity.

She cast invisibility and arrived at the door facing the inner sanctum. 30 evil high demons had barricaded themselves at the door of the inner sanctum and refused to engage with the forces outside. Not willing to reveal herself, she jumped over the barricades, twisted her body and somersaulted mid-air to avoid landing over a demon guard. She stealthily slithered her way inside and closed the door behind her.

“That was pretty impressive Champion of Chaos! Too bad your journey ends here. SEAL”

“Too bad for you Champion of Evil!”

Rain had already seen the future while planning her route across the barricade. She knew that the champion of Evil, a Tier 5 Evil Great Demon Lord, and two other Tier 5 NPCs guarded the last door to the sanctum. She used “Swap Position” just before the Champion of Evil finished saying “Seal”, making him the victim of his own sealing array. Even a Tier 6 God would be out of options facing this ancient lesser divine magical sealing array. She however didn’t stop to celebrate, and cast “Hypnotise” on the nearest Tier 5 NPC, taking control of her and commanded her to release the spatial lock on the sanctum.

Dozens of high demons jumped into the narrow corridor to stop Rain from entering the sanctum. She countered them by summoning two humongous Tier 5 adult void dragons. She speed cast summoning spells, to call forth an army of elementals and guardians and boosted them with “Elemental Chain Link”. She unleashed a series of affinity strikes on the hapless demons. Her double berserk state and 3725% affinity ensured 60-80 billion damage per whip. She thinned the crowd and absorbed their souls before moving towards the sanctum.

“You are too late to stop the ritual” the champion of evil bellowed while shrinking in size, levels and tiers. This sealing array continued to compress him until he was small enough to fit inside a pocket.

“You misunderstand. I am here to welcome the evil god’s doppelganger!” Rain said before storing the ball shaped sealing crystal in her bag.


	60. Evil God's Doppelganger

The summoning ritual was indeed at its last legs. A portal was taking shape and the doppelganger could arrive at any moment. Rain was irked that the sacrificial gathering did not retaliate when she attacked them. They were too invested in the ritual to care for their lives. A thick defensive barrier protected the inner circle of summoners around the evil energy pool. Rain was curious if she could summon another doppelganger since the cooldown was forcefully reset by “Blood Fury”. She decided to do it anyway and was pleasantly surprised when another doppelganger stood next to her. She asked the doppelganger outside to teleport over. The three of them peppered the place with “Experience Steal” hexes. They chain casted “Particulate Corrosion” thrice on the defensive array, boosting the power of hexes by 600%.

“Let’s go thin out the crowd outside while these hexes run their course” Rain nudged her doppelgangers. They stepped out to assist the twin dragons and elementals who were barely holding up against 50 high demons with combat standards at par with the late stage of 5th floor of the trial tower. Two more dragons were added to the mix by the newest doppelganger. They peppered the narrow corridor with “Pins and Needles”. 20 demons were instantly vaporised by a combination “dragon breath” attack by the 4 dragons. The attack destroyed the door and annihilated 6 high demons guarding the barricade. The gatekeepers were finally forced out of their formations and they rushed in to assist their allies. They couldn’t get far as the doppelgangers intercepted them with affinity whips. The three of them deployed 'Death Whips' and 'Reaper’s Scythe' one after another to relieve the demons of their lives and souls.

Wu Lan’s group of faux saints, dragons and elementals cleared the inner courtyard a few seconds later. The magic arrays protecting the summoning pool gave way after 25 seconds. Corrosive sand started to corrupt and disintegrate the evil energy pool, emitting a foul rancid gas that dulled everybody’s senses. The trio decided to wrap up the summoning. They chain cast “Death Burst” and expanded it to cover the entire sanctum. They stood outside the door, watching the sacrifices and inner circle of priests dissolving into smoke.

The summoning portal however was fully formed before the last priest was killed. An exceptionally handsome youth with snow white skin, deep blue eyes and a thick tuft of pitch black hair stepped out of the portal, an instant before it crumbled into dust. Every bit of lingering life force was absorbed by the youth as it smiled and waved at the 4 beauties at the entrance.

“Hello ladies! Not the kind of reception I usually get around here. Care for a dance?” the youth asked.

“I am sorry to inform you that your itinerary has been cancelled. We are here to deliver your return tickets” Rain replied in an equally cheeky tone.

“So that’s how it’s going to be” the youth smirked before summoning a pitch black crystalline sword that instantly sucked in all mana in a 200 yards circle. The smiling ladies showed no signs of distress at massive amounts of mana gathering round the sword for one whole second. The youth had a wry smile on his face as he held his supercharged sword up in the air. Nine pitch dark orbs appeared on the dome above him and started circling around to create a vortex.

“Too bad! Why do good times come to an end so soon?” The youth smiled as he pointed his sword at the 3 ladies in front of him. A thick plasma beam shot forth through the vortex towards Rain’s group. This was none other than the tier 6 curse “Reality Disintegration”. Even god ranked players would suffer miserably if they took it on directly. However, just before the beam struck the ladies, the doppelganger erupted in a heart rendering scream.

“Nooooooo” it went. Rain and Wu Lan had already figured out that the youth in front of them was a doppelganger of the doppelganger that was lying at the base of the evil energy pool. They were smiling since they found this concept cute. Wu Lan intercepted the beam with a portal that opened directly above the pool, attacking the real doppelganger and giving it no chance of dodging. The doppelganger managed to switch with its doppelganger and watched the entire evil energy pool and the doppelganger’s body disintegrate into nothingness.

Before he could recover from the shock, Rain’s first doppelganger blinked next to him. Her time was almost up and she didn’t mind going out in a blaze of glory. She grabbed his body and cast “Detonate”. Nine pitch dark orbs appeared on the dome again and tried their best to contain the damage. The surge of destruction energy powered through a three-fold berserk pushed the orbs into overdrive. They reconstructed the doppelganger’s body losing over 60% of their durability and potency in the process.

Their victory was short lived. Rain’s second doppelganger cast “Demonify” and repeated the three-fold berserk detonation. The destruction power was too much for the orbs to handle. They persevered for a while but exploded soon after reconstructing the doppelganger’s body, for one last hurrah.

Rain was determined not to give him any more chances. She used “Timing and Placement” and arrived next to him. The evil god’s doppelganger entered a blinding rage when hit by “Chaotic Shock”. Rain restricted him using “Chains of Judgement” reducing his defences by 80%. Rain and Wu Lan unloaded their entire repository of single target attacks on a stunned and chained target. The relentless one-sided beating went on for 5 seconds, reducing the doppelganger’s HP to a thread. He was welcomed by a power packed “Piercing Gaze” when he opened his eyes after recovering from stun and blindness debuffs.

“Get back here” Wu Lan prompted Rain, who entered a weakened state after fully draining her super sensory state. Rain blinked away after noticing that her gaze hadn’t achieved the desired result.

Starfire Burst!

A huge explosion ripped through the sanctum, showering body parts and items all over the floor. Rain was puzzled when she picked up the semi-crystallized soul crystal that pulsated like a milky galaxy. Her gaze hadn’t converted the doppelganger into a glass statue, but it managed to partially crystallise his soul and sniff out his life force even before Wu Lan exploded his body to bits. A series of system prompts welcomed her.

System: Congratulations! You have vanquished the Evil God’s Doppelganger. The Goddess of Chaos acknowledges your effort. Awarding +50,000 authority points, +1 Crown of Piercings [Lesser Legendary Rank, Headgear], +1 Chaos affinity stone, +1 Tier 5 Skill Book, +50 Legacy Skill Points. 3 new tasks have been allocated to you.

System: Congratulations! Goddess of Life has acknowledged your efforts. The Epic ranked title has been upgraded to Lesser Legendary ranked “Life Bloomer”.

System: Congratulations! You have vanquished the Evil God’s Doppelganger. Rewarding +250,000 War God's Temple Merit Points, Reputation with the War God's Temple increased by 10,000 points, +1 Seven Coloured Fruit, +1,000,000,000,000 EXP, +5000 Free Mastery Points, +50 Legacy Skill Points and +3000 Humanity Reputation Points.

System: Congratulations! You are the first person to have eliminated the Evil God’s Doppelganger. Rewarding legendary ranked title "War God's Executioner", +1 War God’s legendary chest.

“Damn! I actually became an Ancient’s Executioner” Rain burst into a hysterical laughter. The faux saints were busy devouring the bodies of powerful high demons. They could only dream of acquiring such nutritious diets in future. Wu Lan and the eight dragons were tasked to finish off the stragglers and remaining patrol units, and pick up all the loot. Rain didn’t wish to destroy the temple before plundering it.

System: Congratulations! Demon God Atlock commends you for slaying Evil God’s Doppelganger. Awarding +1 Demon Soul, +1 Demon God’s Legacy Stone, +5 Levels, +1 Tier 5 Super Spell and +1 Tier 4 Curse Skill Book.

“Hahaha. He’s going to vomit blood if he finds out the truth” Rain mused at the Demon God’s reward.

The drops from the Evil God’s doppelganger weren’t as impressive. It dropped a miniature world orb, an epic evil energy growth type longsword, a few cores and materials.

“There must be something more hidden here” she mumbled before consulting the “Void Atlas”. Rain was in awe of the symmetry of the temple’s nine point star architecture. There were only two places where the symmetry was disturbed. One was the entrance to the sanctum while the other place was directly opposite the entrance. She walked over to take a look. The broken arch was a spatial portal like the entrance. Rain was sure that this portal was inactive during the ritual.

“They wouldn’t make something like this just for the sake of symmetry” she thought and started hacking the platform the arch stood upon. Dust settled to reveal a trap door leading to the basement of the sanctum. Rain swapped her staff, summoned a Frost Guardian and sent it inside to explore the chamber.

The Frost Guardian lost 20% of its HP the moment it stepped inside the pool of evil energy that flooded the floor. It cast thick ice walls over the energy pool and used it as a floor to stand upon. A dark twinkling crystal sat on top of a pyramid, at the centre of the chamber. Skull shaped insets decorated the centre of each of the four triangular walls. The elemental’s hand and shoulder melted the moment it touched the crystal. It lost 60% HP in an instant and was crippled. Rain knew that the crystal was some kind of power core. Evil energy pool wasn’t a security mechanism but a super conductor and a giant heat sink, meant to protect the mana channels that connected to the power core.

“Does this mean that the simplest way to destroy an Evil God’s temple is to drain its core’s evil energy pool and watch it go kaboom?” She definitely wanted to try it out if she got a chance in future. She flew inside and inspected the pyramid before pulling out the dagger shaped skeletal insets.

“Control rods?” she exclaimed when hot bubbling evil energy streams gushed out of the channel the inset had plugged. The pyramid started to melt away after the final control rod was pulled out. The restraints holding the crystal were also removed in the process. Rain grabbed the crystal and stored it into her bag. She lost 25% HP, despite over 3000 fire resistance, in the process.

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Evil Dragon’s Heart (Legendary Ranked Material)

This artefact was crafted out of an elder evil dragon’s heart. God ranked users can consume it to boost their legacy core. The crystal can also be used as a power source for cities, fortresses or other structures of prominence.

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Magic Seal Eater (Lesser Legendary Ranked, Dagger)

Crafted by Mastersmith Crankdulof using anti energy metal, these daggers were created for the sole purpose of cutting through energy barriers to aid infiltration and espionage. Over time they found use in powerful magical devices for channelling and control of energy due to their efficient buffer and release properties.

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Rain was thrilled by the items. While anti magic or magic breaking equipment weren’t exactly rare, there weren’t many that were specifically designed for cutting through magic barriers. This was a godly tool for thieves.

She shifted her attention towards the bubbling evil energy fumes corroding her energy shield. She thought of the longsword the doppelganger dropped and shoved it inside the pool. She watched the sword trigger it’s evolution after draining 50% of the pool five minutes later. She shoved it back into the pool to suck it dry. The sword was 30% full by the time she returned to the surface. She finally had a way to rid her base of toxic levels of evil energy contamination.


	61. Legendary Rewards

“Something is wrong. We slayed over 10 million monsters, yet we haven’t gained any levels” Wu Lan voiced her findings.

“Oh I didn’t realise that your EXP is getting banked in as well. Do you need to level up quickly?” Rain asked.

“I have a feeling that tomorrow we will be fighting a much bigger force. I hope to acquire that staff and level it up before we engage in the next battle”

“Evil God won’t sit still much longer. We need to be prepared” Rain replied. She couldn’t rule out the possibility of an attack as soon as next afternoon when she would be at the royal palace. Wu Lan opened a portal to the tunnels underneath Ancient Rock City and led the monsters out of the temple premises. Rain ordered the dragons to tear down the temple compound and burn it to the ground. A series of notifications alerted the entire kingdom about the incident two minutes later.

Rain stayed behind to monitor the progress on the Void Atlas. The dragons alerted her to the presence of faux saint monster armies approaching from all four directions. Teams of two dragons each were dispatched to greet and eliminate them. Rain monitored the battles from high up in the sky. She was shocked when her experience bar started shooting up. It stabilised after she gained three levels and reached level 128. The experience bank was at full capacity. The dragons were ordered to spread out and eliminate as many faux saint monsters they could find. She picked up the loot and teleported out.

Back in the tunnels, Rain transferred 2,920,570,536,000 EXP from the bank to bump Wu Lan to level 200. She then boosted herself sufficiently to upgrade the staff to legendary level 3 by sacrificing 3,388,750,956,613 EXP. She repeated the process to pump another 3,727,626,052,274 EXP to raise it to level 4. Another 4,100,388,657,502 EXP upgraded the staff to level 5. She pinched another 375,655,738,370 EXP to revert back to level 125. She gained 104% of illusion affinity stones, 128% of time affinity stones and 57 lives. She still had 5,862,663,797,610 EXP in the bank.

Toolbox registered a mammoth HP gain. Two more skills had been unlocked.

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Elemental Affinity Toolbox (Divine Ranked Artefact, Legacy Tool)

Class Restriction: Witch

Current life force storage: 26,169,808,963,816,000 HP

. . . .. .

Tool Skill 8: Enable Tertiary Elemental Alignment

Choose an element for Tertiary Alignment. You’ll gain natural control over the element equal to an eighth of your affinity. Resistance, defence, spells and hexes using the element will be boosted by a fifth of your affinity with the element.

Cost: 3,000,000,000,000,000 HP.

Restriction: Can be used only once per witch.

Tool Legacy: Divine Death Witch (Silisa’s Ancient Apex Legacy)

This ancient apex legacy was crafted by Goddess Helena. Only the youngest of her three daughters Silisa, was able to successfully accept this legacy. You will need 2.6 times the regular experience gain to level up. You’ll gain additional 15 x tier free attribute points and 2% primary or secondary affinity every 5 levels and additional 1% of primary attribute every level. You would suffer 200% death penalty and lose 10% of total affinity for your primary element upon death.

This legacy was cursed by the Gods in the aftermath of the conquest for immortality. Only ‘Asura’ and ‘God’ grade challenges are allowed. The challenger will fall back to tier 0 level 0 upon successful class change. Death penalty increased to 400%. Users will lose a level every 15 days after attaining Tier 4.

Cost: 10,000,000,000,000,000 HP.

Class Restriction (for witches): Any witch with Death or Divine element as their primary alignment. Challenger must succeed Helena’s trial with a minimum ‘A’ proficiency.

Class Restriction (other spell casting classes): The legacy will be bestowed upon those whom the Goddess deems worthy. Challenger must succeed Silisa’s trial to be acknowledged by the Goddess. Only those who succeed Helena’s trial with sufficient proficiency will be deemed worthy of this legacy and rewarded with divinity.

Tier Restriction: Tier 5 or above. Can be used to initiate a class change to tier 5 or above.

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Rain was amazed at yet another awesome class for witches. The book she found in Asara’s cabinet didn’t mention this legacy. It had to be immensely powerful for Silisa to defeat the Ancients despite being a Tier 6 God. It reminded her of Wu Lan’s special legacy and her prowess in exploding everything around her. Even antiquity witches lacked so many two or three staged attack spells. She wondered if Blue Bamboo would be able to acquire the legacy. Failing her Tier 4 challenge had shaken her off her lazy demeanour and she was serious about making things work. She was doing better than her expectations in the training programme at Lake Heart City.

She helped to boost Wu Lan’s affinity for various elements to their maximum cap and used the toolbox to unlock the next threshold.

Extend Elemental Channel Capacity!

Repair Elemental Channels!

Upgrade Elemental Bloodline!

Wu Lan was all smiles and bubbly after receiving the boost. Even the macabre faux saint monsters with stifling auras were creeped out by her presence. She left to check on the progress of the scavenging team working above. Rain started checking out her rewards.

System: You have gained 25% affinity with Chaos mana. Total affinity is now 150%

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Seal of Authority (Legendary Rank, Signet Ring)

User Restriction: Champion of Chaos (Bound to Thoughtful Rain)

A ring that carries the authority of the Goddess of Chaos. You can use this ring to take control of her armies and officiate matters on her behalf. You will receive authority points when you complete tasks to the satisfaction of the Goddess. Failure to perform a task or dissatisfactory performance would deduct the points from your tally. You will lose your status as a champion if your score becomes negative. You can choose to refuse a task if it is above or below your task grade. Refusing same grade task incurs Grade x 1000 +1 authority points penalty.

Current points tally: 10,100/70,000. Accumulate 70,000 points to upgrade to the next level.

Status: Grade 2. Basic-Combat, Contract negotiation, Investigation and Infiltration jobs.

All basic attributes: + 800 x Tier x (1 + Grade)

All hidden attributes: + 800 x Tier x Grade

Additional Passive Skill 1 – Aura of Coercive Pacifism

Makes people agreeable to your ideas and agenda, using illusory yet convincing threats that can be easy avoided by following your suggestions. Skill allows you insights into threats or insecurity faced by the opposite parties to fuel your advantage.

Additional Passive Skill 2 – Aura of Malfunction

Gives you a 10% chance that an attack against you will backfire. The probability increased to 25% against war weapons and other mechanical combat constructs.

Range: 3000 yards.

Current Tasks:

  1. Retrieve Tome of Champions. Status: Return the tome to Goddess of Chaos
  2. Retrieve Champion of Evil. Status: Return the sealed champion to Goddess of Chaos
  3. Rescue Blood Witch Miranda. Status: Yet to start. 7 days remaining.
  4. Negotiate safe passage for armies of Chaos through the Barrens of Tulegore. Status: Yet to start. No deadline.



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“So the Goddess is protecting me” Rain thought to herself. She was wondering why Evil God hadn’t posted a bounty on her head so far. Both “Crown of Piercings” and the skill book had a Tier 5 Chaos Witch requirement. The Goddess was trying to remind her of the real purpose of their initial meeting.

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Demon Soul (Legendary Rank, Consumable)

A demonic elixir personally crafted by Demon God Atlock to reward the bravest of his kin and others who have earned his appreciation. This wonder drug cures all ailments, poisons, curses and deformities.

Tier Restriction: Tier 4 or above. Must have sufficient soul level to fully absorb the demon soul.

When consumed it permanently increases:

Soul level: + 1 Tier (Max Peak Tier 5)

All attributes (including luck): +50%

Bloodline (if exists): +1 rank (automatically upgrades all bloodline abilities by 1 rank)

Mana Body (if exists): +1 rank (Max Epic rank)

All resistances: +25%

Life Rating: +1

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Demon God’s Legacy Stone (Legendary Rank, Consumable)

Tier Restriction: Tier 3 or above

Stone can be used to activate trials for any of the following:

  1. Obtain Demon God’s legacy (melee classes). If successful the user will change race to demon
  2. Obtain Demon God’s bloodline. Only demons can challenge this trial
  3. Obtain Demon God’s mana techniques. Can be challenged by all users



Stone contains 3 charges. Each trial consumes 1 charge

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Dark Freeze (Peak Tier 4 Curse)

This curse works in 2 stages:

  1. Transform an 800x800 yard area into a frozen landscape, freezing targets within and reducing visibility to 50 yards. Those who resist freezing will have their movement speed reduced by 50% for the next 60 seconds
  2. The frozen area is peppered with darkness spears dealing 600% darkness and 500% void damage to targets. Targets hit by the spears will be impaled and rendered immobile for 5 seconds. Their movement speed is further reduced by 50% for the next 60 seconds



Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 10 hours

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate consecutively to learn it.

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Cloudburst (Tier 5 Super Spell)

Unleash elemental carnage on a 2500x2500 yard space, flooding the area with water blades, ice spears, air needles and purple lightning bolts carrying 500% base elemental damage. Every attack that connects, reduces the target’s defence by 20% and increases the next attack’s damage by 25%. Movement and attack speed is reduced by 5% per second inside the spell area.

Duration: 30 seconds

Cooldown: 10 hours

Cast the spell 100 times with a 100% completion rate consecutively to learn it.

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War God's Executioner (Legendary Title)

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Vanquished Evil God’s Doppelganger)

You are counted as one of the chosen of War God and qualify to enjoy the Silver seat of power in any War God’s temple. Silver representatives get priority quests and 35% discount on equipment purchases. You can also issue quests through the temple for a mix of gold, equipment, merit or glory points.

When equipped:

All attributes (except luck): x2

Damage and Defence against darkness type entities: +300%; (+500% against undead)

Skill completion rate: +10%

Additional Passive Skill 1: War God’s Blessing

All friendly units in 200 yards circle gain 10% attribute bonus and 50% attack speed bonus

Additional Passive Skill 2: Bannerman

All enemy units within 200 yards will be suppressed by 20%. Darkness type and undead units will have movement and attack speed reduced by 25%.

Additional Passive Skill 3: Cleansing Aura

Suppress all contamination and corrosive energies by 50% within 200 yards. Users need to stay in the area for 24 hours to fully purge the effects of the contamination.

Additional Active Skill 1: Slayer of Evil

Boost attack speed by 200% and attack damage by 500% for 60 seconds. Every attack carries a 20% chance of stunning the target for 5 seconds.

Cooldown: 15 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Focused Fire

Launch 5 virtual lenses in the battlefield. Each lens can be used to lock on a target in the 2000 yards range. All attacks that land on the lens at the same time will be combined and transferred to the target. Focussed fire cannot be dodged and has a 50% chance of resulting in a critical hit.

Duration: 60 seconds

Cooldown: 30 minutes

Additional Active Skill 3: Ten Hits Ten Kills

Execute 10 attacks at 2000% damage each. All attacks cannot be blocked and are guaranteed critical hits if they connect. Gain an extra hit if the target dies.

Cooldown: 2 hours

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Life Bloomer (Lesser Legendary Title - Passive)

Bound to: Thoughtful Rain (Earned acknowledgement of Goddess of Life)

All attributes (excluding Luck): +15%

Lighting resistance: +800

Additional Passive Ability 1: Life Bloomer

HP regeneration rate: Self +300%; Allies within 300 yards +100%.

Additional Passive Skill 1: Life Beacon

Anyone who receives healing from you will have HP regeneration rate doubled for 5 seconds

Additional Active Skill 1: Threads of Life

Sacrifice your HP to heal a target for 100 times the sacrificed HP. You can connect a healing thread to up to 25 targets within 200 yards. Once connected to a target, you can maintain the thread for up to 10 seconds. You can heal a connected target by sacrificing your HP anytime during the thread duration.

Any healing you receive while connected to targets will be multiplied by the number of threads.

Duration: 10 seconds

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Additional Active Skill 2: Threads of Resurrection

Sacrifice your HP to resurrect a target. HP cost for resurrection = 15% of max HP of the target. The target is resurrected with 50% HP, 10% Mana and suffers 25% of regular death penalty. You can resurrect up to 5 targets every 5 minutes (including during combat).

Cooldown: 5 minutes

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	62. Spoilt Princess with a Staff of Mischief

Rain was amazed at the Demon God’s generosity. She felt bad about stealing his cannons. Demon Soul was indeed God sent! She decided to absorb it before challenging her tier 5 trial. An epic mana body and a tier 5 soul level would do wonders for her when attempting a class change. War God was generous as well. The war chest contained 3 growth type epic equipment, an Epic staff [300 Hungry Ghosts], an Epic sword [Evil’s Bane] and an Epic shield [Warrior’s Twin]. Rain was sure that she could upgrade them to legendary rank over time.

The staff was particularly impressive and required exquisite crystals and stones to upgrade it. Rain tried to feed it some of the attributed gemstones but didn’t elicit any response. She was wondering what to do with it when Wu Lan came running towards her.

“The staff of mischief! Where did you find it?” Her question amused Rain. She was at a loss for words while looking at her startled face, and merely pointed towards the war chest. “That is the hereditary staff of our family. My grandfather lost it in the great-war and we were evicted from our ancestral home as punishment. Can I have it back?” she explained. Rain was befuddled watching the staff bending around her palm, excited at Wu Lan’s presence. She was even more puzzled when it started purring when Wu Lan softly caressed its hood.

“Here. It seems to be fond of you” Rain passed her the staff. She was flustered watching the staff jump over and coil around her shoulders like a snake. Wu Lan seemed to enjoy every moment of it.

“Hungry? I got some snacks!” Wu Lan spoke in a high pitched tone and offered some soul crystals to the staff. It munched on them like a ravenous cat and consumed 100 of them before getting bored and reverting into a staff form.

“Thank you for finding this staff and restoring my family’s honour. I’ll be in your debt” she bowed to Rain.

“I’m glad I could help. But I am really curious about it. Care to share its tale?” Rain asked

“Our founding father had a pet cat. It was as powerful as him. The cat died a few days after his death but not before storing a fragment of its soul within this staff. Our family has a tradition of handing it to the youngest member after they clear the rite of passage, hence the nickname ‘Staff of Mischief’. I was the next in line to receive it before it was lost forever” Wu Lan explained.

“Interesting! What about its appetite?”

“Oh anything it hasn’t eaten before. It’s really hard to find such stuff and this guy starts to get cranky if not fed properly. Hopefully this snack will pacify it for a while”

“Hahaha. Ok try these next time” Rain passed her the twinkling soul crystals picked from the superior mythic monsters. The staff responded swiftly and intercepted the crystals while waving its tail at Rain. She smiled and waved back in response. The sudden mana fluctuations made Rain wonder if the cat used a skill to intercept the transaction.

The epic sword “Evil’s Bane” ironically needed evil energy crystals to upgrade. Rain spent 800,000 crystals to upgrade it to Fragmented Legendary rank. She spent another 5 million crystals to upgrade it to Fragmented Legendary level 10. She held on to the next upgrade since it would wipe out the 3 million crystals she was left with. The epic shield “Warrior’s Twin” needed both EXP and mana stones to upgrade. She stepped out to check on the scavenging teams.

The crew from Zero Wing and Candlelight cleared up most of the debris and used it to construct a makeshift storage room for the items and treasure chests they excavated. The central Magistrate’s hall was left untouched due to toxic concentrations of evil energy seeping out of the shattered temple ruins. Rain had the entire area barricaded and covered up to prevent anybody from snooping around. She summoned the shadow hawk to transport all the loot and the players back to Silverwing City. The city token was handed over to Youlan. She teleported back to Lake Heart City and logged out to rest.

Wu Lan stayed behind and put the faux saint monsters to work. They cleaned up the debris, broke through the defensive magic arrays that protected the treasury and stripped it clean. Some of the other chambers and underground cellars were also excavated and cleared. The loot was moved to the underground tunnels before sealing them shut.

.. . . .

Next day Rain met Bamboo inside the guild hall. The chatterbox she was, she narrated all the stuff that happened overnight and how a massive force of faux saint monsters invaded the ruins of Ancient Rock City and took control of it. Half of those troops then moved towards Star Moon Kingdom. Rain called Wu Lan to confirm the status.

“We are still lazing around in the tunnels underground. Those monsters have seven Tier 5 Demon NPCs in command. I thought of ambushing them but the risk was too high” Wu Lan reported.

“Could you identify the NPC who has the signet ring?”

“Yes. I wanted to kidnap and kill him but all the NPCs have some kind of soul link activated. If I drag one of them down, rest will automatically follow. There is a chance that Demon God is watching them as well”

“Let’s secure the treasure first. We’ll play with these demons later. I will send you portal coordinates in a while” Rain left the hall to look for Snow. She found her in the training grounds instructing Snake and another cloaked woman that exuded a powerful aura. The swirling fire mana around this woman gave away her identity.

“Zhao Yueru! Congratulations on becoming Tier 4” Rain spoke with a smile.

“Rain? Huh? Who? How?” Yueru had a blank expression on her face. It was her first time dealing with ‘Ambiguity’ and she struggled dealing with her profile that read “Sien Choo, Level 99, Tier 2 Cleric”

“Oh that’s our mystery girl. She looks different every time I see her” Snake quipped.

“Rain! Good you are here. I finally have a window to challenge my Tier 4. I’m sorry I won’t be able to train you as promised. Yueru and Snake will fill in for me. They know the drill as well as I do” Snow sincerely apologised to her.

“Have you found someone to help you initiate the trial?”

“Well kind of. It’s a bit on the expensive side but at least I won’t need to waste time”

“Does Starlight Saint mean anything to you?” Rain asked. Snow froze at those words. She forgot to breathe for a while. This wasn’t the first time Rain had that effect on her.

“Let’s take the discussion inside”. She wasn’t surprised when Rain wanted to meet in the conference room. She was expecting another flood of high quality loot from Ancient Rock City and the Evil God’s Temple in Star Moon Kingdom. She had no idea she would be thunderstruck in a moment.

A portal opened inside the conference room and superior mythic faux saint monsters started pouring out of it. They deposited various treasure chests and other miscellaneous items before walking back into the portal. Snow was frozen stiff watching so many superior mythic monsters doing porter duty. Their combined auras were so overpowering that both Snow and Rain had problems breathing. Rain had to drag her into the portal before she could recover from the daze.

“How have they become so powerful and why are they following you?” Snow asked after reaching the tunnels. This was the first time she met a monster whose aura choked her to such an extent.

“They are on a super nutrient diet” Rain chuckled. “The altar of Starlight Saint is right ahead however, would you like to know how to control these monsters before you start your trial?”

“I knew you’ll figure something out” a voice alerted Snow to a powerful presence.

“Snow meet Wu Lan” The ladies exchanged greetings. Snow couldn’t take her eyes off Wu Lan. She was shocked to learn that Rain had an Epic Tier 5 personal guard. It took her a while to collect herself and return to the discussion.

“Care to share your master plan?” Wu Lan asked.

“It is pretty simple. You just have to go up there and ask them nicely” Rain had a wry smile on her face. Wu Lan burst into laughter. Snow was clueless. Her jaws dropped when Wu Lan started her transformation.

“We are done with the looks. We need to tune your voice and aura”

“I can help with that” Snow played a few clips and helped Wu Lan adjust the voice filters. She further helped to tone down her aura.

“Just behave like a spoilt princess. You’ll nail that look” Snow suggested

“She is a spoilt princess” Rain quipped, causing everyone to laugh

“Just watch me” Wu Lan spoke in a ‘princessy’ manner. Rain applied evil energy shields on everyone in case their heist went south.

Moments later a portal opened up near the demon NPCs, alerting them to a possible confrontation. They relaxed when they noticed a familiar cloaked figure stepping out of it.

“Lord Killstreak. Could I borrow your signet ring for a while? These monsters are needed elsewhere”

“You can have your ring back. Permanently! I can’t stand these hideous, stinking filth of meat bags anyway”. The demon happily handed over the signet ring and thanked the lady. Over 800,000 faux saint monsters walked into a portal like disciplined soldiers. The cloaked lady closed the portal behind them.

A commotion broke out among the demons a while later.

“Lord Killstreak. I just got a call from Vice Leader Cold Shadow. She wants us to send the faux saints army to raid Silverwing City the moment she launches her assault.”

“What? Didn’t she take all of them with her just now? Damn! We have been robbed!”

“It seems she took more than that. I don’t see the Demon God’s charm on you”

“Bloody Popsicle! My legacy technique crystal is missing as well. Find a way to locate that thief. We must retrieve those items before Demon God has our heads” Killstreak panicked

The demons thrashed about the place in frustration. Some of their tracing led them back to Cold Shadow while other methods came out short. They cowered in fear and gloom at the thought of explaining their failure and stupidity to Demon God Atlock.

Meanwhile, Wu Lan deposited the faux saint army inside the Dark Witch’s Tower, their soon to be headquarters. The evil energy in the area obfuscated all traces of life force, mana and soul signature. This was another reason why Evil God’s temples were so difficult to find. She teleported back to the tunnels, to join the ladies, who were enjoying watching the demons cursing, swearing and tearing their skin off.

Let’s have a small ceremony before you depart. Rain gathered all the superior mythic monsters and powered a “Soul Revitalise” hex under them. The three ladies entered the hex area. Snow felt her mind getting clearer and lighter. Her senses became sharper and her reaction time improved by a minor degree. She could sense the monsters auras strengthening every second. Rain hoped for two of them to evolve into God rank, however they seemed to have hit a glass ceiling. Rest of the monsters showed significant improvement and were close to their maximum evolution level as well.

“These will help you in your tier challenge. I wish you luck” Wu Lan gifted Snow the legacy technique crystal and the Demon God’s charm. Snow felt her strength soar after equipping the necklace. The legacy technique for berserkers could boost her combat standards to insane levels at Tier 4. Snow wanted to hang around for a while to thwart any misadventures Cold Shadow planned, but she was convinced by Rain to go for her class change.

“Remember to tier-up in God mode difficulty setting, with over 100% completion rate and at least 100% skill completion rate. You have the strength of a Tier 4. I wouldn’t expect anything less of you” Rain reminded her. Only Snow could pull off something like that.

Snow nodded to convey her appreciation. She was laughing her head off while walking towards the tunnel exit. She was convinced that Rain would ‘cover’ for her. Wu Lan had already morphed into Snow’s persona and was repeating ‘spoilt princess’ over and over to tune her voice filters, while giggling intermittently. The two ladies returned to the conference room in Lake Heart City.


	63. Duchess of the Orient

Snake’s team was called in to guard the conference room while appraisers from Candlelight ran through the treasure chests. Appraisers were made to sign another confidentiality agreement. The rules of engagement were much stricter this time. Each chest and loose item was assigned a number. Appraisers were instructed to write down the details of the items and drop it inside a black box. They understood the need for secrecy after blinding flashes of light erupted when the first treasure chest was opened.

‘Snow’ instructed Zhao Yueru to bring Rain and Bamboo over to the training grounds and start the days’ session. Yueru was reluctant to leave the conference room after being bamboozled by the first few treasure chests. She salivated when one of the treasure chests sucked in all the fire mana inside the room. She relented moments later. Both Snake and herself felt tickled by Snow’s latest avatar but were unable to pin down the reason. Wu Lan had them wrapped around her fingers. Rain was secretly praying that she doesn’t go overboard with the roleplay and spoil the plot. It was common knowledge that Snow was to leave for her Tier 4 challenge in the afternoon. She just had to play along for a few hours.

Yueru wasn’t as good a teacher as Snow. Her techniques were a lot more forceful and brutal. A caster teaching other casters the ropes of melee combat was unheard of. On the contrary the exercise was mightily beneficial to them since a caster’s perception of the battle and combat methods differed drastically from their melee counterparts. Yueru had tonnes of experience in close quarter combat. Her insights in combat casting opened new horizons for the two ladies. She also taught them a few basic combat techniques that dealt with strength combination. They were thoroughly exhausted after a fruitful training session and took a break six hours later.

“I need to head to Star Moon City” Rain asked to be excused from the training.

“You are helping Snow with her tier change?” Yueru asked.

“Yes. We need to go uncover some clues about her legacy. If that doesn’t work out she can always approach the NPC who wants to rip her off” Rain clarified.

“Damn. I’m itching for a fight as well. I really want to try out my new powers” Yueru whined.

“No worries. I am sure that Evil God will launch a crusade against us soon. You’ll have your hands full then”

“Oh yeah! I was amazed we managed to take down two of Evil God’s temples in a single night. Snow refused to tell me the details. I suspect she was involved. I hate it when she keeps secrets from me”

“Well I don’t mind secrets as long as we keep winning. I hope she returns before we are hit by another invasion” Rain stated with a smile.

Unknown to them, someone was snooping on their conversation. A few calls followed a while later.

. . . .

Cold Shadow was having a difficult time dealing with one failure after another. Intelligence failure aside, she was befuddled by how Zero Wing was able to muster a force powerful enough to covertly take down the Evil God’s temple. None of the spies had reported any troop movements. Every player of prominence was accounted for and yet they razed the temple to the ground and returned to their posts without raising any alarms.

Many of her faux saint patrols were attacked and decimated by dragons reeking of evil energy. Not a single corpse was found inside the temple complex when they arrived at the scene, an hour after the system announcement. The fortress surrounding the temple showed no signs of conflict. It was a perfect invasion and a perfect cover up. The only obvious conclusion was that someone wanted to implicate Zero Wing in the destruction of Evil God’s temple.

They rushed over to Ancient Rock city to raid its treasury after Zero Wing abandoned the area due to toxic levels of contamination. They had monitored the city throughout the night, yet an invisible force had already picked the treasury clean and disappeared without a trace. It was highly likely that they used the tools or maps found in the treasury to locate the main temple and executed a raid. Lot of things didn’t add up.

To make matters worse, someone impersonated her hours ago and stole one-third of the faux saint army under her command. Loss of Martial Dragon’s signet ring had already orphaned half of the troops at the Crimson Flame Fortress. Whoever took that ring could easily control the fortress if they wished.

“It’s pretty obvious that the troops were gathered from outside of Star Moon Kingdom. They definitely have a city or town that they have successfully hidden from everyone. Even the guild members were discussing this possibility” A demon player commented.

“Main force members suspect Gentle Snow was involved. She was the one who gathered all the level 140 equipment they auctioned yesterday. She was mysteriously missing for two hours last night” A woman with a lithe figure commented.

“We know she is a monster but it’s impossible for a Tier 3 player to accomplish this task. It’s impossible for an army of Tier 4 players as well. Only Tier 5 players can survive in an environment contaminated with dense evil energy” the demon player retorted

“Quiet you two. It’s surprising enough that Demon God’s jackpot has been claimed. The Evil God’s doppelganger was killed last night, yet he hasn’t acted against Zero Wing. This is proof enough that there are powers beyond our knowledge that want Zero Wing to suffer. The attack on the temple came from within. They knew the doppelganger was to be summoned that night and used Zero Wing to cover up their tracks. It’s impossible for that measly guild to achieve such a feat” Cold Shadow slammed her fists in frustration. Things were getting murkier by the hour. A short while ago they received an order from the Demon God’s doppelganger to investigate the disappearance of demon NPCs after they entered some tunnels in Ancient Rock City.

“I don’t want to say it but our intelligence network has failed us far too many times in the past week. Has Zero Wing infiltrated us?”

“I have been having similar thoughts. I doubt Zero Wing has infiltrated us. They probably have identified the spies we planted and are intentionally feeding them false information” Cold Shadow reasoned.

“Is that why we gave up on raiding their secret warehouse in White River City?” the lithe woman asked

“We haven’t given up. The plan will go ahead when we have concrete evidence. We can’t afford to walk into another trap merely by trusting the information from guild spies. Besides, there is a powerful NPC who watches over the city from the shadows. She seems to be more powerful than the Demon God’s doppelganger. I wonder if Zero Wing is intentionally setting us up” Cold Shadow explained. A series of announcements interrupted their discussion.

Star Moon Kingdom Regional Announcement: The King has conferred Countess Protector Wu Lan the title of “Honorary Duchess of the Orient” for her contributions towards defeating the Evil God’s Doppelganger and protecting the Kingdom from ravages of war.

Star Moon Kingdom Regional Announcement: The King will host a banquet to honour Duchess Wu Lan at the royal palace in Star Moon City in 60 minutes’ time. All prominent citizens are welcome to attend the event.

The announcements repeated three times, engaging everybody’s curiosity over this unknown expert that saved them from certain devastation. Crowds started pouring into Star Moon City to catch a glimpse of the duchess. The kingdom’s forums were fervently discussing this new event. Some mentioned that there was no such noble in the kingdom until last night.

“Sigh! I wanted to use this opportunity to propose to Snow Goddess. Seems like I’ll have to wait for another time”

“So there is an expert that Zero Wing kept hidden”

“I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an entire army of experts. This guild is insane”

“How is it possible for a player to slay a God’s doppelganger?”

“We’ll know when we see her. Black Flame has done an excellent job at focussing the spotlight on himself so that the rest of his guild experts can grow stronger in shadows”

. . . .

“She's an NPC! Maybe she is an envoy of the War God’s temple. That explains the honorary title. Damn! Zero Wing knows how to be at the right place at the right time”

“I always suspected that War God’s temple is secretly backing Zero Wing. A guild with no foundations cannot grow that far without covert backers”

. . . .


	64. Your Highness Wu Lan

Rain covertly deposited the treasure chests in the empire’s royal warehouse that exclusively served high nobles in Lake Heart City. Highlord Katie Green’s black market dealings had transformed the little known city into a trade hub for exotic items. Rain was curious to find out why so many teams of faux saint monsters were trying to raid the city ruins. The answer lay in the black box inside her bag space. She wanted to find a quiet and private space to review the appraisal details later.

An hour ago, Rain and Wu Lan (disguised as Snow) entered the teleportation hall of Star Moon City. They took a carriage to the royal palace and were received by Magistrate Weissman at the palace courtyard. Wu Lan turned off the illusory filter and regained her normal appearance before taking off her black cloak inside the royal smithy. Royal Godsmith Timberulu personally conducted the customisation and binding procedures for ‘Star Splendour’ 8-piece legendary set armour. She looked like a Goddess when she walked out of the smithy 30 minutes later. Her aura was so intense that even the Tier 3 palatial guards bowed involuntarily in her presence.

She collected ‘Timeless Brilliance’ from the armoury of the royal treasury and started upgrading it by pumping her EXP into it. Her level quickly dropped from 200 to 125 in the process. She took out two pale looking gemstones and started infusing them with the staff’s core after fully upgrading it. The staff crackled and hissed. Veins of mana emerged from its core and wrapped around it, chipping away its base material. Only a spectral phantom of the staff remained two minutes later. Wu Lan had tears in her eyes when she held the staff. She wished her sister was alive to see her dream, their whole family’s dream, finally being realised. This staff was none other than “Starfire’s Quintessence”, the staff of her founding father!

The staff disintegrated into millions of needles moments later and drilled into Wu Lan’s body. This childish lady, who would scream and throw a tantrum at the tiniest of cuts, was surprisingly persevering the relentless assault. She collapsed on the floor a while later, with tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips. Starfire erupted from the tips of the needles and consumed her body. A commotion broke outside the royal treasury when Tier 2 guards were knocked unconscious. A ghastly sight welcomed Rain and Weissman when they rushed towards the treasury along with the captain of the King’s knight guard. The Tier 3 guards stood frozen, flailing with a strange push and pull pulsation that assaulted the treasury door. They ran inside, only to be further stumped at the scene of thousands of weapons dancing around a massive orb of light and fire.

“Is the treasury under attack?” The captain wanted to raise an alarm but Weissman stopped him.

“What we are witnessing here is the birth of an Exalted. We are lucky that it’s happening inside the treasury building. The entire palace would have been blasted to rubble if this happened outside. Let’s seal this area and establish a perimeter outside” Weissman tried to pacify the thoroughly bewildered captain and calm him down. The pulsations stopped 10 minutes later. Wu Lan glowed like the sun when she slowly dragged herself out of the treasury. She was in an extremely weakened state after her evolution.

“Are you alright Countess Protector?” the captain asked in a frustrated tone. He was clearly not pleased with the treasury being thrashed. The armoury was in ruins with its magic arrays showing signs of saturation.

“I don’t feel so good. I am not sure what happened back there” Wu Lan replied in a pitiful voice. She was sincerely apologetic but had pushed through her charms and cuteness, hoping to escape a potentially troublesome situation. Lots of people had lost their heads for lesser crimes inside a royal treasury.

“No worries. It’s nothing that cannot be fixed with a little effort” the captain hesitantly relented. There was clearly no intent of theft, malice or mischief. While he would have to report this to the King, there was little chance of the situation escalating beyond control. Her contributions to the kingdom couldn’t be overlooked either.

“Sir Knight Captain she is the one who blew the Evil God’s doppelganger to shreds. I would like to recommend her for the honour His Majesty wishes to bestow” Rain was inwardly smiling at Wu Lan’s antics. She herself was trying to get out of a difficult situation after the knight captain informed her about the King’s decision to honour her. It was not something she wanted to reject but doing so would not only reveal her identity but it would give Asara and her cohorts a reason to burn the kingdom down. The witches had never accepted the authority of the King over their lands. Wu Lan was the perfect scapegoat to save them both.

“Lord Adventurer. This is not an honour that can be bestowed upon your personal guard. Her contributions are automatically credited onto you” the agitated knight captain clarified.

“Sir Knight Captain, I would be violating my own conviction and honour by accepting credit for something I clearly do not deserve” Rain held her ground firmly.

“May I offer a suggestion? It’s not the first time the King has conferred an honour to an outsider. Lady Sharlyn, Lord Ucarus and others have made tremendous contributions to the Kingdom and have been aptly rewarded as well. Could we think along those lines?” Weissman butted in.

“That’s definitely something we could consider. Let me speak with the Grand Duke and the advisory council. I am sure they can come up with something” the knight captain stated before excusing himself. It was only after his shadow disappeared that Rain reacted to Wu Lan’s latest avatar.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Wu Lan] (Thoughtful Rain’s Personal Guard)

Class: Tier 4 Ancient Peak Class, Starfire Exalted Witch

Race: Exalted

Level: 100

Loyalty: 120

Growth Potential: 130

Alignment: Illusion [Primary: 401%], Space [Secondary: 400%], Fire [Tertiary: 500%]

Intelligence: 1,058

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What just happened?” Rain was shocked to see her latest attribute panel.

“I merged with my founding father’s staff and unlocked his legacy. I am not sure why I dropped 25 levels and a tier. My soul is 90% weakened and I am too low levelled to equip the armour. I am sorry to let you down like this”

“Hahaha. Do you know how proud I am! Come let me help you with that” Rain tried to console her. She drew a soul restoration hex and powered it by sacrificing 2% soul affinity. Wu Lan’s soul recovery was almost static. The recovery picked up only after she hexed “silent degradation” to buff it up to Tier 5. She only managed to recover to 30% soul state 45 seconds later. She wanted to redo the hex but was stopped by Wu Lan. Her soul state had stopped increasing beyond 30% a while before the hex duration expired. They sat near the fountain discussing the state of affairs in the kingdom with Weissman. Rain relaxed while Wu Lan freaked out when the system messages welcomed them.

“Why me? Why did you do this to me? I feel so nervous! Do I look ok?” She knew it was a great honour but was scared of the limelight. She was even more scared of attention than Rain was, even though it was for a different reason.

“Magistrate Weissman, could we request for a private room for a while? I need to get her ready for the banquet” Rain asked.

“You can use my personal chambers if you don’t mind. It’s definitely secured” he offered. Inside his chambers Rain immediately teleported out to her private room in Zero Wing City and summoned Wu Lan using the personal guard scroll. They worked over her stage fright issues and realised that Wu Lan was a total nutcase when it came to being in the spotlight. She gave up 30 minutes later. It was time to switch to plan B.

“You need to equip that ring” Rain stated.

“I can’t. I need to be at least level 120 to equip it”. Rain pumped 400,747,204,500 EXP from the bank to push her back to level 150. Rain was amazed by the amount of EXP needed to level her up. Wu Lan equipped the ring and the legendary armour set. They created an illusory replica of her own persona. She finally had something to hide behind when facing the crowds. They filtered out the words “Thoughtful Rain’s Personal Guard” and switched her race to ‘Human’ to avoid unwanted attention. The illusion would help her survive a few minutes of fame on the stage. Rain passed her a set of ‘fairy shades’ to keep her distracted. The stream of numbers would easily block out the crowds. She teleported back to the Weissman’s chambers 10 minutes before the banquet and patiently waited for the ceremony to begin.

“Are you ladies ready? I am here to escort you to the palace courtyard” Weissman knocked. He could see a vivid transformation in Wu Lan. She looked like a Goddess enveloped in light. Glitters of sparkles lit up around her when she walked out to greet him and the entourage that arrived to brief and escort her. The ‘Star Splendour’ set not only boosted her attributes, it also enhanced her charms and grace.

Everybody present in the courtyard was awestruck by Wu Lan. The way mana swirled around her was a testimony to her incredible power. Even Tier 5 guests felt their mana environments encroached upon in her presence. The felicitation function concluded without any issues, however Wu Lan and trouble had always been the best of friends.


	65. Heavenly Treat

Wu Lan was plunged into a meet and greet session. The entire Star Moon Kingdom wanted a piece of their newest duchess. One who manifested overnight like a dream and saved them from the biggest threat they faced in years. Everybody was curious about her origins and affiliations. They knew it was futile to ask such questions, especially of a duchess! Wu Lan was somehow managing the interactions with smiles, nods, waves and bows. However, there was one noble who asked pertinent questions.

“Greetings Duchess. Thank you for saving all of us from the Evil God’s invasion. What do you think about the faux saint monsters that threaten our borders?” There was a long silence after the question was asked. Everybody was wondering if the duchess heard the question among the chorus. They had no idea that Wu Lan was so scared of attention that she lost her voice. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and fought hard to regain control of her own body that was shivering with fear. It took her awhile to gather enough courage to find her voice. She unceremoniously cleared her throat and spoke very slowly.

“It will be a lot simpler to counter their threat once we find their masters and eliminate them” Wu Lan answered. Her voice was slightly shaky when she started but she persevered to finish her answer with a tinge of confidence and relief. The word ‘masters’ set the courtyard abuzz. There was no evidence to suggest that someone controlled these monsters and ordered them around. Befriending, controlling and merging with one or two monsters and use of magic arrays and scrolls to repel them were common knowledge. These techniques were often used by powerful dark players for survival and combat. Only Ancients and their minions had the capability of commanding hordes of monsters and making them do their bidding. The noble who asked the question wondered if the duchess misspoke. He took a step back and bowed out to shelter her from a potentially embarrassing situation.

“You believe there is an external force commanding them? How do you suggest we find their masters?” another noble chimed in, with a smile on her face. Those words threw Wu Lan in a tizzy and silenced the crowd. They were enraged that someone wanted to rub salt into the wounds of their saviour for a silly mistake. They were curious about what the duchess had to say to rectify a faux pas over faux saint monsters. Wu Lan was silent for a while. This time however, she wasn’t panicking. She had a nagging feeling that the person who asked this question felt somewhat familiar. She was trying to recall everyone she knew who could fit that description, yet all her efforts came a cropper. She was forced to adjust her ‘fairy shades’ to sneak a peek at the cloaked noble.

“Can’t be too difficult to find someone who is standing right in front of me” Wu Lan smirked at the cloaked noble. She chuckled behind her illusion upon realising that it was the same person she impersonated a while ago. Her words alerted everybody in the vicinity. Even Rain who was watching from a tower at a distance was surprised by the revelation. The guard captain immediately ordered his knights to surround and apprehend the cloaked player.

Cold Shadow wondered if the duchess was bluffing and wanted to use her as a scapegoat. Was it possible for her to know so much about her? She couldn’t rule out the possibility of her ex-allies selling her out. It would be a child’s play for someone who infiltrated Evil God’s temple to unmask their operations. Any defence she could concoct wouldn’t hold any ground before someone with the stature of a duchess. Her options were limited and she wasn’t going to take things standing down either.

“You are mistaken if you think you can take me down. Since you are gathered here, you all can die together!” Cold Shadow retrieved an orb and smashed it on the ground to open a portal. Thousands of faux saint monsters poured out of the portal and flooded the palace grounds.

“You really think these monsters stand a chance against the mightiest of Star Moon Kingdom, War God’s temple, Adventurer’s Association and allied forces? You are a fool if you think you can escape amidst the chaos” Wu Lan saw through Cold Shadow’s intentions.

“In that case you’ll be my ticket to freedom” She knew that her game was over and the only way to survive was to kidnap the duchess and use her as leverage. She took out the sealing crystal Demon God had given her and threw it towards her. Arcs of purple, red and crimson lightning emerged from the crystal and shot forth to incapacitate Wu Lan. She tried her best to open a portal and get away but she was too weak to cast any spells or resist the seal’s effects.

“Hahaha. Pitiful Duchess! Even a God ranked player cannot escape the Demon God’s prison. Stop resisting and accept your plight” Cold Shadow laughed hysterically watching various arcs of electricity assault Wu Lan’s body, suppressing and immobilising her. She wanted to mock the crowds further and rub salt into their wounds when something weird caught her eyes.

“Huh! What?” was all she could mutter at the sight of a phantom cat that appeared on Wu Lan’s shoulders. The cat leaped into the air and snacked on the sealing crystal as if it were a delicacy. The look of contentment on its face was heavenly. The cat burped moments later and leaped back into Wu Lan’s arms. Cold Shadow was shell shocked at the scene. She was trying to come to terms with the destruction of a lesser divine artefact. She didn’t even notice that a ‘soul seeking’ arrow had found its mark and pierced her head. The impact flung her into the portal. Everybody heard an explosion, followed by heart rendering screams moments before the portal closed.

“Sorry I was late. I had to carve a path through the monsters” Rain arrived at the scene and was relieved to find that Wu Lan was alright. They were surrounded on all sides and everybody was risking their lives to break through the blockade and save their prized duchess.

“I really like that woman. I wish I had her guts” Wu Lan was in awe of how calm and decisive her attacker was while facing an impossible situation.

“No worries. I’ll pass you her guts when I rip her open the next time” Rain knew that Cold Shadow wouldn’t be bothering them for at least a week. She would be suffering from a weakened soul state for days even if she survived that attack. Players had to be really lucky to survive a ‘soul fire burst’ without sufficient control over it. All forms of regeneration were suspended while the soul fire damage was in effect.

Rain had been itching for close quarters combat since her training session in the morning. She fended off all attacks on Wu Lan and herself. She sharpened her skills and experimented for a while before the knights broke through the blockade and escorted them to safety.

Peace returned a few minutes later. The knight captain guard shook his head at the sight of the destruction. First it was the treasury and now the palace courtyard. Both events were linked to the same person, yet ironically he was supposed to be thankful to her. The duchess was famous again. She exposed the role of Demon God and Mythology behind the abominations that threatened their home.

Rain and Wu Lan bid farewell to the folks and returned to White River city along with Weissman. They wondered if someone was able to claim the bounty on Cold Shadow’s head. However, it was nothing compared to 10% revenue from the eastern cities of the kingdom including, White River City, Maple City, Gale City, Twin Lion City, Coldstar City and Blue Frost City, they would be pocketing. Being a duchess had its perks!

Magistrates of all these cities arrived to greet and welcome their new boss and benefactor. They discussed the state of affairs, various highlights and problems that their cities and linked towns faced. Wu Lan was bored to death and dismissed them within five minutes under the pretext of visiting them for a one on one session at a later stage. She was cursing and swearing under her breath. Being a duchess was no fun.

. . . .


	66. Money Minting Enterprise

“I’m tired of being a dead weight. I need to figure out how to recover my soul state” Wu Lan complained.

“Your Highness! You will require an environment rich in supreme elements to recoup your strength. Only places that were sealed prior to the great wars or those powered by elemental cores offer such an environment. I believe only ‘Origin of Sin’ has that kind of environment but that place is extremely dangerous” Weissman suggested.

“I know of a place where you can just relax and sip wine the whole day. I still have some business to attend to. I’ll bring you there later” Rain offered. She left Wu Lan under Weissman’s care and teleported to Stone Forest City to meetup with Melancholic Smile.

. . . .

Three ladies sat quietly inside the top floor meditation room in Candlelight trading firm.

“You guys have been hiding here the whole day? Is something bothering you?”

“We’ll be out of job soon” Melancholic Smile chuckled like a crazed maniac.

“We don’t have designs to forge anything beyond level 120. It is impacting our product offerings and slowing our progression to Grandmaster level. We aren’t good enough to forge Epic equipment and need to forge higher level dark gold items to bridge the proficiency gap” Cream Cocoa blurted out the truth about the problems they faced. Snow had already authorised them to discuss confidential matters with Rain if needed and Cocoa was always too straightforward.

“Maybe these will cheer you guys up!” Rain took out a few tattered tomes she plundered from Dryad Mother’s trunk.

“Level 130 Advanced Mana Rebound Shield Design!” Cocoa’s eyes lit up with excitement.

“Level 135 Dark Gold Spitfire Booster Shoe Kit!”

“Level 140 Dark Gold 6-piece Mithril Crystallite Armour set!”

“Level 150 Dark Gold 8-piece Void Thunder Armour set!”

“Level 140 Epic 6-piece Elemental Armor Kit!”

“Oh my god! These are so awesome! I never heard of an elemental armour kit before” Cocoa was like a kid in candy land.

“Then what are you waiting for? Go get cracking! I hope you have the necessary materials to experiment” Rain smiled.

“I can start on the Mana Shield right away” Cocoa said before beaming out of the meditation room.

“You never fail to surprise. Credit, Gold or GCPs?” Melancholic Smile smiled at Rain. It was time they got down to business.

“None. I seek a barter. Lots of mana stones, attributed gemstones, energy crystals, magic cores and parchment. I have the list of items I need right here. If the designs are not sufficient to cover these please feel free to deduct my GCPs. I am willing to pay gold if GCPs run out” Rain stated with a stoic face. Melancholic Smile was at a loss of words looking at the list with quantities set to ‘max’. She knew Rain was dead serious in her demand and was planning something big. The item that caught her eye was “Water of Life”. This was the only item with a fixed quantity assigned to it. She wasn’t sure if she trusted Rain with a guild secret.

“Alright. Let me see what I can do. How soon do you need these items?”

“Right now. You can give me whatever you have. I’ll simply return it if the quantity is not sufficient. I’d appreciate it if you could provide me a room strong enough to contain and sustain magical fluctuations” Rain demanded. Smile called her assistant and asked him to send the entire stock of items into her personal forging room.

“It will take some time to properly evaluate the value of the designs and work a barter scale. You can use my forging room in the meanwhile. It has survived many nasty explosions, a few magical fluctuations should be manageable”

“Mind giving me a hand if you have the time? Just 30 minutes! I promise it will be worth any explosions we might encounter” Rain knew her capability to craft summoning scrolls wouldn’t be a secret for long. She wasn’t a materials expert and it was best to get help from someone who bridged her shortcomings. Melancholic Smile not only had vast knowledge of materials, their availability and cost but could also boost negotiations with items of equivalent value if the need arose. Being at the helm of Candlelight had infused her with a keen sense of market demands and dynamics. She could easily determine if the monster being contracted would appeal to their customers and whether the contract was worth the barter amount.

“Tier 4 Summoning Scrolls! Are you kidding me?” Smile’s jaws dropped when Rain briefed her about the money minting enterprise

“I never fail to surprise? Don’t I?” Rain chuckled at her reaction.

They finished picking all the low lying fruits 45 minutes later, choosing the most economical monsters that offered sizable benefits.

“We have 60 Tier 4 and 90 Tier 3 scrolls. What do you intend to do with them?” Smile asked

“Off course auction them! We picked the lousiest monsters to maximise our profits. We can always contract the heavyweights for guild use later” Rain explained. The daily Candlelight commerce auctions were a great way to keep the members addicted. These chaotic times were also their best chance at making a quick buck.

“I’ll be making a trip to the western continent soon. Let me know if you need anything delivered” Rain knew that the Starlight Fortress was the best place for Wu Lan to recover. She heard a few stories about it and was eager to check the place out.

“I have a lot of stuff piled up. How much can you bring?” Smile asked. Rain could have brought the entire candlelight firm over if she had a chance to unload the Demon God’s cannons. She knew she had to find a way to get rid of the cannons without drawing attention to herself or Zero Wing. They used a shop transfer scroll to teleport to White River city and inspected the items and materials packed and ready to be transported to the western continent.

“Is that all?” Rain asked after storing a room full of supplies inside her spatial ring. She didn’t bother to wait for an answer and teleported high above the Starlight Fortress.

. . . .


	67. Useless Player with a Fancy Mount

“Are you going to help out or just stay there and watch?” Violet’s voice caught everyone around her by surprise. They wondered who she was referring to. They were currently engaged in a bitter battle against the demonic forces that were assaulting the fortress in huge numbers, simultaneously from east and west. Divine dragon Auerbeck was soloing and massacring the invasive forces in the east while Violet, Divine Tribe, Azure and Netherworld Empire's forces defended the only entrance to the fortress in the west. Rain was amazed at being discovered so quickly. She wanted to have some more fun before announcing her presence.

“You know I can never turn down such a grand welcome party” Rain replied after hexing “Experience Steal” on a craftily concealed artillery and ranged column of the demonic forces. She was hexing for a while, and riddling the ground with a series of silent hexes. The view from the top laid bare the ridges in the mountainous terrain where the support and range units were hiding. The scorched valley was a grim indicator of the fact that both sides had run out of large scale AOE spells a while ago. It was only after she spoke that the rest of the allied forces realised that the dark cloud floating above their heads was a flight mount. None of them paid much heed to the unknown player as they watched the cloud drifting away towards the rear of the enemy lines.

“Another useless player with a fancy mount” MacAffrey frowned with disgust. Fithalia wanted to correct him but decided to focus on the battle instead. Ten pitch black magic arrays suddenly appeared behind enemy lines. 20 magic arrays. 25. 35. . . . . The number only stopped after reaching 85. The demon army attempted a hasty retreat but they were crippled when they stepped into the valley passes. A labyrinth blocked their retreat while debilitating hexes sealed the narrow mountain passages. Even teleportation and group movement scrolls and spells were disabled. The only choice left for them was to either run forward and die at the hands of the fortress defenders or brave the hell-scape and hope for survival. They didn’t have much time to decide since a myriad of peak tier 4 spells started raining down on them. Less than 500 demons survived the carnage and managed to escape with their life. Rain had no intention of pursuing them. She had already flown over to Auerbeck’s battlefield.

“All that was done by that useless player with a fancy mount. I hope she didn’t hear those words” Violet chuckled at MacAffrey who was frozen stiff at the smouldering landscape in front of him.

“Boss Violet just how many monsters are there in your guild? That lady had a glowing purple emblem like yours. Is she stronger than you?” Fithalia asked. Violet looked frail but in a friendly contest she wiped the floor with the entire Hell Legion without breaking a sweat. Now an unknown expert turned an army of demons to ash.

“Didn’t I tell you I am only within the top five. Our guild is really competitive” Violet spoke with an aura of pride. “Let’s go help Auerbeck for once. He’ll be pissed we finished our battle ahead of him”

. . . .

Rain watched the magnificent divine dragon toying with his opponents despite being heavily suppressed by layers of magic arrays. She was perplexed with the behaviour of the demons who seemed to willingly sacrifice themselves at his feet. “Are they trying to lead him into a trap?” Rain’s intuition pricked her towards the obvious conclusion. She immediately used “rapid cooldown” and cast “reveal” over the battlefield. Her worst fears were confirmed when she saw a strange looking circle on the ground. There were five cloaked NPCs hovering around the circle, each holding a dark orb. The demons weren’t leading the dragon into a trap. They were desperately trying to keep him within the circle while the NPCs drained his powers.

The dark NPCs knew their ritual had been exposed and sent some of their minions to engage Rain. She immediately shapeshifted into a Void Hawk and dived straight towards the ritual circle. The minions could only watch her shadow escape them. Even the mighty dragons couldn’t match a void hawk’s speed. She let out a “Soul Piercing Screech”, the most powerful control skill used by Void Hawks, and knocked out all the demons to the ground. The screech was so intense that the dark orbs exploded, setting the NPCs on fire. The ground collapsed, thoroughly dismantling the circle and corrupting its energies. Auerbeck was the first to recover from the soul curling cry. Finally free of suppression, he blasted two of the NPCs into oblivion using “Dragon’s Breath” and clawed the third one into minced meat.

The two remaining NPCs desperately tried to escape their fate but couldn’t get far. One was hit by “Chaotic Shock” while the other was intercepted by the stealthy shadow hawk with a “Heart Seeking Arrow” causing temporary blood freeze, followed by “Wing Blade” that flung the NPC towards the raging dragon. Auerbeck latched on to the airborne NPC, smashed her skull and ripped her body into half. The void hawk grabbed the last NPC with a “paralytic grip” and flew off before the dragon had a chance to finish things off.

“You will not stand in the way of my revenge” Auerbeck bellowed in a fit of madness.

“This one is mine. You can beat those demons to cool off” the void hawk replied and flew towards the Starlight Fortress, leaving behind a raging dragon who smashed the skulls of hapless demons around him to vent his anger. Everybody on the eastern wall watched the scene unfold with bated breaths. They were too scared to intercept two massive birds flying towards them after snatching a dragon’s prey. Auerbeck relaxed after watching the hawks land within the fortress. A puny human saved his life and shattered his pride. It wasn’t easy for him to accept this outcome. He chased down every demon within 2000 yards and squished them to pulp to relieve his anger. This wasn’t the first time a lesser being had saved his life. The turmoil in his head emanated from something deep within his heart that gave him cold shivers. There was something he saw that flooded his head with several conjectures. He decided to confront his saviour after he calmed down. He didn’t want anger to cloud his judgement any longer.

The NPC was imprisoned upon arrival. It fell on Violet to interrogate her. She couldn’t get anything meaningful out of the prisoner other than that her name was Moksha and she was a powerful witch who would burn the fortress down when she got out. Her tireless rants, abuses and threats echoed through the prison until Violet’s fully cloaked attendant took out a sinister looking greyish stone. There was absolute silence from that point onwards.

“You will truthfully answer all the questions. If I sense a tinge of falsehood in your words they will be your last” the cloaked attendant threatened the witch who was cowering in fear. Moksha was forced to re-evaluate her options. Her fate was sealed unless a tier 6 power made an attempt to defeat the dragon, break into the prison and rescue her. She could have cheated death but it would be a different story if her essence was drained. She accepted her role in draining the dragon of his divine bloodline to boost her powers. She revealed names of the witches that were shredded like butter by the berserk divine dragon. Rain could sense the deliberate bits of misinformation the witch tried to peddle but she led her on since the witch was getting bolder and boastful after successfully selling her lies. Watching her captors shake at the revelations, made her sing like a canary.

Moksha made it abundantly clear that their coven would keep coming back for Auerbeck. He was the only divine being in the entire realm! She tried to bribe them with peerless treasures for letting her go and even more ravishing rewards if they handed the dragon to them on a platter. No power could dare to cross their path with a mighty coven of witches watching their back. However, she wasn’t prepared for what came next.

“That’s so sad. Queen Astralisara would be so disappointed at your stupidity. Didn’t she tell your boss Kijlstra that someone not born into divinity can never become a divine witch?” Rain decided she had enough fun pretending to be scared. It was time to have fun scaring the clueless witch in front of her. It seemed that Kijstra finally had a breakthrough in finding a legacy item that could help her become a divine witch but was unable to use it without sufficient divinity. Moksha froze at the mention of those two names, especially Asara’s real name. There were only a few people alive who knew that name and it only meant that her captor was playing her for a fool the entire time and knew that she was lying through her teeth.

“Queen Asara is dead. Who are you and how do you know Kijlstra? What do you know about divine witches?” Moksha’s blabbering caused Rain to erupt in a maniacal laughter.

“Oh Kijlstra! Isn’t it fascinating how she uses the code to shatter the code every now and then! Oh boy she always gets what she wants!” Rain craftily used Asara’s own words and voice for fun. Little did she know that these lines were rather infamous among the elders of the coven.

“Queen Asara? Please forgive my ignorance. I vow to make it up to you and teach that traitor Kijlstra a lesson” Moksha broke down in tears at those words.

“Don’t worry child. I have a greater purpose for you” Rain mimicked the queen’s voice and tuned the prison interface to restrain the witch and reduce her HP to 8%. 45 seconds later only a shimmering stone remained at the place where Moksha stood.

“Why do I get a feeling that you have done something hideous” Violet was creeped out by the ritual and turned to question Rain’s intentions. She freaked out when she inspected the details of the shimmering stone that lay on the prison floor.

“Yes. It is indeed hideous. This is exactly what she was doing to Auerbeck. I merely paid her back in her own currency” Rain’s cold reply sent shivers down her spine. Was this the same person she had grown fond of? Violet stood frozen inside the prison cell, watching Rain walk away, unable to make sense of her transformation.


	68. Demon God Town

“Don’t just stand there and sulk. We need to prepare. You have no idea what’s coming for us” Rain’s voice alerted Violet but wasn’t enough to evoke a response. She was shaken off her stupor by a super charged lightning bolt that shot towards her and pulverised the shimmering stone to dust, inches from her feet. They didn’t speak with each other on their way out.

“O champion of Gods! I seek an audience” Auerbeck’s voice welcomed them.

“Sure Lord Auerbeck” the ladies responded in unison before gawking at each other in amazement. Auerbeck laughed at their predicament before grabbing them in his massive claws and shot off towards the tower of summoning. He cast an isolation shield around the tower before thanking them for saving his life and apologised for his eccentric behaviour.

“I presumed the Goddess sent you over to imprison me again”

“I have no such orders. I wasn’t aware that you were imprisoned by her”

“It was thousands of years ago. I lost control over myself and destroyed a lot of things. The goddess sealed me in a void land. It happened again today and you brought me back to my senses. I sincerely thank you for that. Do you know what those dark powers were doing down there?”

Rain summarised the information they extracted from Moksha before explaining the situation in detail. The failed attempt at stealing his divinity would only invite more covert attempts in future. Violet was amazed by how much information Rain had shared with them. Knowing the enemy’s strategies, strengths and weaknesses simplified battle dynamics. They discussed various strategies to protect the Starlight fortress and Auerbeck from potential ambushes in future.

“How were you able to enter a berserk state?” Rain asked. Her combat prowess depended primarily on her berserk skills so far. Her failure to tier-up in this special region made her jittery and rekindled her desire to learn more combat techniques as soon as possible.

“Three kinds of berserk skills work in this region, origin skills, like the one I used, racial skills, like demonic transformation and affinity skills that some elemental creatures use. I haven’t come across anyone with a bloodline berserk skill in this realm so far so I am not aware if it would work. However, using these skills imposes heavier penalties than usual” Auerbeck explained. They set off to review the security details of the fortress before resuming their duties.

. . . .

Back at the Lord’s mansion, Rain deposited all the items she was supposed to deliver and requested Violet to host Wu Lan for a few days to allow her to recover. She didn’t bother with a response and summoned her over immediately.

“You change into me quickly. Now!” Rain instructed Wu Lan. The panic in her voice was too obvious to overlook.

“Is there an enemy town or city in the neighbourhood? I need the coordinates now!” she demanded. Violet immediately pointed her to a map on the wall with a rough set of coordinates.

“Mythology established Demon God Town just outside Star Valley. They have been giving us a lot of problems recently. I really wish I could lead an expedition down there and raze it to the ground but I fear the guild leader would disagree” Violet was still looking at the map and had no idea that Rain had disappeared before she could finish her sentence. Wu Lan transformed into Rain moments later. She made a clueless face in response to Violet’s astonished looks.

“She probably just needs to take a dump” she chirped before snickering away. Violet immediately contacted Fithalia and asked her to send a team of assassins to investigate the matter. They were all stunned by a system announcement three seconds later.

Star Valley Regional System Announcement: Zero Wing has destroyed Demon God Town. Demon God Town will no longer be under Mythology’s jurisdiction. Guild popularity reduced by 2,000.

The announcement repeated three times, shocking every player in the region. What place was Demon God Town! The base of Mythology’s number one trump card legion. Over 10,000 demon players occupied that place and each of them possessed an Advanced Battle Array. Nobody in their right minds ventured anywhere close to that town, yet Zero Wing destroyed it.

. . . . 

Rain received a prompt about elemental poisoning and panicked. She had five seconds to find a “safe” place to mitigate its effects. She wasn’t sure what would happen. Just like the past occurrences it was guaranteed to be fun. She teleported a fair distance from the town and used teleprompt to zoom her way inside. The guards at the gate didn’t even have the time to react to the gush of wind that assaulted their bodies.

“We have everything we need to take down that stupid dragon and Starlight Fortress. They wouldn’t be able to retaliate if we strike right now”

“Commander! I have received word that the fortress defenders just finished battling the demonic forces. Their skills and spells would be on cooldown. We should strike them while they are down”

BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!

System: You are suffering from elemental poisoning. Clash between Chaos and Earth has ended in a chaotic mess. Everything within 1000 yards around you, will crumble to dust. Chaos energy has been expelled. Anyone within 100 yards will have their concentration drained by 10% per second for the next 60 seconds. You will transform into a giant earth elemental for the next 60 minutes.

“Yes!!! That’s what I am talking about!! Wait what?” Rain was exhilarated beyond her wildest dreams watching the bustling town disintegrate and the surrounding demon players minced into thick paste. She wanted to jump up and pump her fists to celebrate but she couldn’t even move an inch.

System: You lack sufficient strength to perform an action.

A 20 feet tall giant earth elemental stood among the ruins. She thought about playing dead but gave up on the idea after watching over 5000 demon players rushing in, to crush her into rock salt. Those watching from a distance found the scene comical. Thousands of pumped up and transformed demon players were running towards a giant elemental. Their speed crawled to a snail’s pace as they closed in on their target, making them look like they were in suspended animation, only to drop dead on its feet after landing a few hits. Over 2000 bodies decorated the pile within 100 yards of the giant 60 seconds later.

Rain could only muster enough strength to move her arms. After making offensive gestures with her fingers she started drawing a hex. She looked like a concertmaster guiding an orchestra as her fingers moved slowly. It took her 20 seconds to finish drawing “experience steal” and released it on the captive audience around her feet. She didn’t want so many bodies to go to waste. Her passive skills and auras ensured that she took only a tiny damage from the hex. Spells started lighting up the area. Single target spells were followed by large scale destruction spells. She was taking two to three digit damage from the attacks thanks to layered defence, ridiculous attributes, and elemental affinity coupled with the atrocious natural defence bonus of the earth elemental form.

Rain’s troubles increased a notch when a dozen Tier 4 summoned monsters and defensive towers joined the assault. The demons let out a sigh of relief watching her HP decline steadily and launched multiple combat techniques and combination spells to finish her off. Various kinds of spells and arrows rained on Rain, chipping away her HP. Rain was at wits ends thinking of a way to escape her predicament.

She giggled when she found out that she could still use her affinity skills. 10 powerful whips latched onto the Tier 4 monsters and drained 30% to 40% of their HP. The demons panicked at billions of damage appearing on the monsters heads. The monsters were healed back to full health and engaged her again. More whips followed, wiping out the reminder of their HP over the next five seconds. The demons were stunned when the tables turned suddenly.

The giant elemental transformed into a 28 feet tall demonic earth elemental. “Demonify” not only boosted her size, it doubled her attributes as well. She gained enough strength to run amok. Bodies were squished, bones were broken, blood was splattered and screams unleashed when Rain mercilessly crushed their bodies by stepping on them. Her immense strength and “Blunt Force” sent the demons running for cover. Rain was having a lot of fun using her petrified scythe shaped staff as a golf club, launching demons into the air with every swing. Each hit was further enhanced with “Void Fire” causing most of the demons to explode when they hit the ground. The carnage continued for another 10 minutes. Less than 300 demon players managed to escape the assault.

30 minutes later a tactical team consisting of Divine Tribe and Netherworld Empire members arrived on the spot and cleared up the drops. These guild’s upper echelons were convinced beyond doubt that Zero Wing had the power to take on Mythology in the Western Continent despite their measly numbers. First it was Black Flame, next came Violet and today they witnessed two new experts from the guild, each one exceeding the other in destructive power and insanity!


	69. Worst Mistake in the Western Continent

The scavengers maintained a 100 yards distance from the giant elemental statue at all times. They watched in horror as cracks appeared on the giant’s body a while later. It crumbled into boulders, depositing rock piles in a 5 yard circle. They were too bewildered to make any sense of the situation and decided to focus on their task and return to the fortress before Mythology’s reinforcements arrived.

Rain lay buried underneath the pile of rocks. She was thoroughly exhausted by the rampage that drained her entire stamina. She neither had the intent nor the strength to move the stones away. She too was freaked out by the whole episode. The gap between Chaos and other elements was too huge for her comfort. She could have ended up becoming a sitting duck without her affinity abilities. She teleported back to Starlight Fortress after resting for 10 minutes.

Conference rooms of various guilds suddenly came alive due to the latest developments. Mythology in particular was seething with anger and in a process of putting up a lofty compensation demand against the unprovoked attack by Zero Wing. An article originating from the official Zero Wing handle on the forums took away their thunder.

“Cowards should refrain from plotting against Zero Wing” the article contained a video clip of a bunch of players plotting to take over Starlight Fortress, followed by a slow motion clip of them turning to dust. While the article didn’t name any guilds, everybody knew the identities of players in the video. The final clip showed a giant elemental flashing the middle finger to anyone who dared to disregard the warning.

Several independent players uploaded videos of a demonic elemental finger dancing, stomping other demons and whacking them out of the frame.

“The giant was slow dancing to ‘Hit me baby one more time’”

“That domain is so awesome. I just learnt that those melee players lost 35 levels on average”

“Did Zero Wing move one of their giant players to western continent? One is enough!”

After becoming a laughing stock in the eastern continent, Mythology was repeating the feat in the western continent.

“Presenting the mightiest cowards in the game”

“Send me a nudge if you run out of graph paper”

There were quite a few who pitied Zero Wing for provoking Mythology. It was obvious that the super-guild would not let the matter rest so easily.

. . . .

“Did we just wake up a slumbering monster?” Violet was concerned about the attention they were getting.

“They attacked Zero Wing City. They attacked Silverwing City. They attacked us in Star Moon City a few hours ago. Let them come. I’ll burn them down to cinders if they dare show their faces here” Rain was cold and decisive. Her anger against the guild was justified.

Violet however knew that her words were powered by confidence and determination, and not arrogance or rage. Mythology had tested her own patience too many times. It was time for them to face the consequences of their actions. Her only regret was the fact that she could not muster enough courage to stomp those bastards out of Star Valley herself.

“Boss Violet, any more of your guild monsters joining us later? I wonder if we’ll get a chance to move a finger when Mythology shows up” Fithalia was itching to teach Mythology a lesson after numerous run-ins with them in the past. She had worked incredibly hard to raise her combat standards. She was the only player from Divine Tribe to unlock a peak Tier 4 core so far. She was also the only one to last more than 5 moves against Violet.

“They are calling us cowards for attacking the town when most of their trump card legion members were away challenging their Tier 4 promotion. They are whining that we sent a Tier 4 expert to bully a bunch of Tier 3 players” MacAffrey chuckled and continued, “Is your giant friend joining us later?”

“She is here on a quest and will head back to HQ later” Rain replied, quelling any further questions over the identity of the giant.

“We just learnt that Mythology has gained over 30 Tier 4 players in the past few days. They will definitely send a strike force over to redeem their reputation. Our guild leader has agreed to send all the Tier 4 players in Netherworld Empire to assist in guarding the fortress” Stinging Rhapsody reported.

“Please allow me to deny with our utmost gratitude. Mythology will definitely play dirty. They understand the consequences of attacking this fortress. They may try to attack you in other locations out of spite. I do not wish to drag you guys in our war with Mythology. If they dare to provoke us further I will personally destroy the nearest city they occupy” Violet spoke with conviction. Her words shook everyone including Rain. She knew Violet was in the same league as Black Flame and Gentle Snow in terms of strength and combat power. The way mana moved around her was similar to how it did around Wu Lan. It was impossible to determine how much strength she had kept hidden. She could probably silence an entire battlefield by her mere presence. Pissing her off was the worst mistake anyone could make in the whole western continent.

The tense atmosphere in the conference room was suddenly interrupted by a high pitched voice. “Anyone seen a cat around here? My cat ran away. Please help me find him”. MacAffrey snapped at the newcomer but was immediately reined in by Fithalia, before he could explode. She could sense a whirlpool of mana swirling around this mysterious cloaked lady.

“Your Highness! I’ll look for it immediately” Rain chuckled inwardly before leaving the room. Wu Lan had grown slightly stronger in the past few hours. Everybody in the room was frozen stiff at the scene. They had no clue about the identities of these two women and now a cat had joined the party. It was easier to ignore the episode as a blip rather than attempt to decipher its meaning. They carried on with the discussion.

Rain and her doppelganger were meanwhile ‘Teleprompting’ through every nook and cranny of the fortress to look for the cat. They finally caught a glimpse of it lazing atop Auerbeck inside the summoning tower. The dragon took off to the skies before they had a chance to collect the cat. They could only watch the two of them disappear into a portal that opened up above them.

“What’s with that cat? Seriously! Now he is buddies with a divine dragon?” Rain was thoroughly bewildered by the scene. Wu Lan gave her a clueless look and shook her head in response. They were further stumped by an illusory projection of the dragon that shot out of a staff lying on the floor. The duo clearly didn’t want others to learn about their adventures. Both of them sat at the base of the tower and discussed their future plans. They had to find an alternate habitat to relocate the faux saint monsters from the tunnels beneath Ancient Rock City. They decided to explore the higher level maps and nearby demon nests to look for a suitable location as soon as Wu Lan recovered enough soul strength to cast spells. Rain shared her need to gain Chaos affinity as soon as possible. The best way to do it was by acing her next assignment.

Blood Witch Miranda was imprisoned within the Star-Crossed Fortress, a medium sized fortress in the eastern section of Star Valley. That place was packed to the tee with level 140 and above monsters. Rain intended to unleash the entire faux saints army on its denizens to create a distraction for her to sneak in and rescue the witch. She was fairly certain that she could accomplish the task in total secrecy since nobody was stupid enough to step within 2000 yards of the fortress. They were in the middle of a discussion when Violet asked them to meet her inside the Lord’s mansion.

“Mythology will attack us with 30 Tier 4 players by tomorrow evening. There is a high chance they will teleport some forces inside the fortress prior to the invasion and use them to sabotage our positions” Violet stated.

“30 is too little. I suspect they are deliberately trying to feed us wrong information. I would expect at least 300. They want to humiliate us and redeem their reputation. Control of the fortress is probably a secondary goal.” Rain assessed.

“Thanks for confirming my suspicions. How do we eradicate this threat? I am not talking about defeating them. We need to exterminate them!” Violet’s resolute words spoke volumes of pain and anguish she felt repelling attack after attack. There was no need to hold back anymore.


	70. Battle of Concentration

“You want to exterminate the threat before or after they attack us?” Rain asked with a straight face. The question stumped Violet. She understood what Rain wanted to do. Beating them in their own backyard was preferable to defending the fortress. These two ladies had enough firepower between them to burn down entire towns if they wished to.

“Let’s go and hit them so hard that they cringe at the thought of crossing paths with us ever again” Violet asserted.

“I want to join in as well” A voice creeped them out. They both were startled to find Fithalia walking towards them. “Sorry to drop in like that but I want those bastards to pay for every insult and insinuation. I know my guild leader will not approve of my actions but my patience has run out”

“Can I come too?” a soft whispery voice made them look in the opposite direction.

“Aren’t you still too weak to fight?” Rain asked

“I am but I can do this!” 3 strings of power erupted from Wu Lan’s body and lifted the three ladies a few inches above the ground. Power surged through their bodies boosting them by 2 minor tiers. Sadly Wu Lan couldn’t maintain her domain long enough to be of much help. “Darn! I am still too weak” she sighed before collapsing on the floor. Earlier she could boost Rain by a minor tier, pushing her through Tier 5. Now even Fithalia had been brute forced to Tier 5.

“What just happened? Did she transfer all her power into us?” Fithalia hadn’t encountered anything like that before. She was too overwhelmed to think rationally.

“Yes. Something like that” Rain explained without revealing too much. “If we are going for a fun trip together then we should take some time to plan and prepare. Who will safeguard the fortress while we are away?”

“We have nothing to worry with Auerbeck protecting us” Fithalia exclaimed. The looks she got from both Rain and Violet made her wonder if she spoke wrongly. Rain was amazed that Violet knew about Auerbeck’s departure from the fortress. She was yet to figure out how she noticed her presence earlier. She deduced that Violet could sense even the tiniest of fluctuations within 2000 yards and it freaked her out.

“Fithalia. You are the only one I trust to guard this fortress in my absence. Auerbeck is away at the moment. He left behind an illusory body to desist others from taking advantage of the situation” Violet spoke in a calm and steady manner. “Let’s hope he returns in time so that you can join us later” she further added in an attempt to cheer her up.

“Okay I will go review our defence preparations then. Let me know if you need anything” Fithalia left the room, disappointed at the lost opportunity.

“We need to get her in fighting form before we head out. She needs an environment rich in supreme mana elements to recover. Can you help her in any way?” Rain asked Violet while pointing at Wu Lan.

“You guys follow me” Violet brought them to the high security legacy room and asked Wu Lan to step into the chamber. She could use the room for 10 minutes every 15 days, thanks to her silver insignia. She gave up her slot to help Wu Lan recover.

“These are for you” Rain handed the legendary ‘Bracers of Jeopardy’ to Violet. Her jaws dropped at the dazzling bracers in front of her but she didn’t like handouts. Sensing her hesitation Rain smiled and continued “this is for helping her out and teaching me some awesome combat techniques”.

“What combat techniques?” the statement confused Violet.

“The ones you are going to teach me later” Rain spoke with a goofy grin on her face. “What! You want me to beg you?” she giggled

“Sigh! I would have taught you those even without these gifts. It’s just that my combat techniques require exceptional control of the three supreme elements. You need to be good at conjuration, control and sensing for space, time and illusion elements before you can think of executing those techniques without hurting yourself” Violet clarified.

“Test me! I am not so good at Space but Illusion and Time are my favourite elements” Rain answered confidently. Little did she know that three swords, each conjured out of supreme mana elements, were flying towards her head at lighting speed while she was still midway through her statement. She felt cold shivers upon realising that Violet hadn’t even moved a finger in the process. A whirlpool of elemental mana rose behind her head moments before the swords struck and altered their trajectories. Three swords became 300 and rushed at her from close quarters. The whirlpool expanded to surround Rain. She had to dig deep within her pockets to deflect and neutralise the attacks.

300 swords rose again. This time they combined themselves into pairs of 150 swords and tried to penetrate Rain’s defences but she managed to keep them out. 150 combined into 50 shot towards her. She responded by conjuring another whirlpool and fused them together to lighten the impact. She was extremely grateful to Zhao Yueru for teaching her this awesome strength combination technique. 50 became 10. 10 became 1. Every time Violet strengthened the swords, Rain responded by strengthening the barrier. The whirlpool looked more like thick elemental whips floating around her.

Rain almost wanted to cry. It felt like she was shown a tutorial on hunting rabbits and sent to fight a dragon immediately afterwards. Violet’s blades laid bare her various flaws and lack of expertise. Violet was gracious enough to give her one chance to understand and rectify her mistakes. It was obvious that Violet wanted her to improve as much as possible without diluting the effectiveness of the trial.

Violet was impressed by Rain’s performance and her ability to learn from mistakes. It was clear that she was nearing her limits and teetering on the edge. She was curious to know how far she could push her before she cracked.

“You have done well so far. The real test begins now" Violet’s words send shivers down her spine. She wanted to curse and swear but she knew Violet had a habit of pushing people outside their comfort zones. Many months ago she pushed her to a point where she collapsed from exhaustion. It was too late to complain. She gritted her teeth, steadied her breathing and nodded in approval.

“Freaking cabbage! You were holding back all this while” she blurted, watching 600 elemental blades manifest around Violet. All she got in response was a knowing smile. There was definitely more from where that came from. Rain shuddered but kept her defiant look. She watched in horror as thick gooey mana started dripping off the edge of the blades. Rain knew she had to place all her cards on the table to survive whatever Violet was preparing for her.

Affinity Shroud - Tertiary Alignment!

Rain aligned herself with the ‘Space’ element, doubling her natural control over it. The elemental whips stopped rotating and knotted themselves into a fabric like construct. The fabric wrapped her like a mummy. She could feel her heart pound. Beads of sweat started trickling down her head. Her hair stood on its edges watching the blades being strengthened. She was draining concentration like a rivulet. Every layer she draped around herself made her feel that it was still not enough. Thousands of pop sounds confirmed her fears. Violet’s blades had suddenly developed serrated edges and were moving in to greet her.

Violet got a shock when the fabric grew tiny spikes the moment the serrated blades assaulted them, jamming them in the process. The stalemate only lasted a short while. Holy devour mana quickly crumbled the spikes to mist. Layers were torn, blades were shattered, gashes opened, and sparks flew in every direction. Somewhere in the middle of the assault the blades merged into a giant chainsaw that scraped Rain’s defences like a blade on a whetstone. Rain pushed really hard against Violet’s onslaught, countering her mana technique by attacking the chainsaw using her own blades from time to time. She knew it was over when the chainsaw penetrated her final defensive layer. It was futile to fight a battle of concentration with Violet. She could only take comfort in the fact that she managed to last for so long.

Rain was never the one to give up, even in the face of certain defeat. She closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, steeled her heart, took a deep breath and readied for one final push with her mind, body and soul in complete consonance, sacrificing all her residual concentration in one final act of defiance, using everything she got. Unknown to her, a golden yellow goo started oozing from her body. It slowly expanded in size and covered her completely. Violet was startled at the sight of an unfamiliar mana element. Golden sparks flooded the room when the chainsaw came in contact with the golden mana layer. Her curiosity got the better of her and she went full throttle, using ‘Holy Annihilation’ for the first time to cut through the mana layer.

This however proved to be her undoing. A huge explosion ripped through the room. Their bodies shot outwards like bullets. Both Violet and Rain ended up becoming wall decorations on opposite sides. Even the security team outside was knocked out as a result of the blast. They had no idea who or where the attack came from.


	71. Antiquity Armour

Fithalia was confused at the sight of 25 guards lying unconscious outside the legacy room. There were no signs of them being attacked either. She was stumped to find both Violet and Rain in a similar state. Only difference being that they were still vertical, firmly glued to the wall. Her nightmare was shaken by a high pitched voice.

“This room is so nice. I feel so much better. Oh! What happened here?” Wu Lan stepped out of the legacy room to find Fithalia shaking with horror. She ran to check in on Rain. There were no signs of any injury. “This room’s mana is very turbulent. I have never encountered something like this before” she stated, pulling Rain out of the wall and putting her on the floor. Fithalia narrated her findings. Both of them were clueless about the reasons for the blackout.

“Commander Fithalia. We need to bring all the bodies inside before it’s too late. Could you help me with it?” Wu Lan requested. Fithalia immediately sprang into action. All the 25 bodies were dragged inside and placed next to bodies of Rain and Violet. Wu Lan drew a rejuvenation hex on the floor and powered it. Fithalia had no clue what was happening but she felt her stamina grow after the arduous training session she just completed. Wu Lan was an enigma to her. The things she did were beyond her comprehension and she was too scared to ask.

The guards started reviving 30 seconds later. They were placed under a gag order and told to return to guard duty as soon as they could walk. Rain and Violet regained consciousness 10 seconds later. They were still hazy when the hex duration expired. Rain braved the pain to draw another rejuvenation hex, stunning Fithalia further. “Cleansing Fountain” was also effective at purging the Chaos contamination in the area. They soon regained over 70% concentration and Violet instantly pushed them back to 100% with a powerful rejuvenation spell.

“You cheated! We were only supposed to use supreme elements. You used a mana element I am totally unfamiliar with” Violet complained

“I am not sure what really happened but these effects definitely point towards a supreme element” Rain replied

“Impossible. There are three supreme elements and I am well versed with all of them” Violet was agitated

“There are five supreme elements. Most realms have only three of them” Wu Lan clarified, stunning both Violet and Fithalia.

“Six actually. But it doesn’t matter” Rain mumbled. They all felt like they had been living in a well all this while. “Did I pass?” Rain flashed her eyebrows at Violet

“Yes. We start in 1 hour. You guys can use the training room and familiarize yourself with the various facilities in the meanwhile” Violet stated before leaving with Fithalia. Rain finally had some time to think about what happened a while back. A system notification caught her attention.

System: You have unlocked a new bloodline ability at Tier 2, “Antiquity Armour”. Refer to your bloodline panel for details.

“Yippee!!” Rain celebrated when she checked out the details of her armour

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Antiquity Armour (Bloodline Armour, Affinity Growth Type, Mana Armour Kit)

Damage: + fire affinity%; Movement speed: + air affinity%; HP and Mana: + water affinity%

Defence against elemental and magical attacks: + total supreme elemental affinity%

Defence against physical attacks: + 2 x earth affinity%

Elemental Resistance: + affinity% for each element

Passive Affinity Ability 1: Elemental Feedback

The armour is layered with supreme elements defined by your class, from lowest to highest affinity. Any attack that penetrates a layer will result in damage feedback in a conical region of up to 100 yards, by the element being penetrated.

Active Affinity Ability 1: Elemental Reflection

Reflect any attack back in a conical region up to 100 yards ahead. The attack will be reflected back with 100% of its original damage plus additional elemental damage equal to affinity% for each element you have affinity with.

Usage Limit: Up to 2 times. Current count 0/2

Active Affinity Ability 2: Body Slam

Launch yourself as a projectile towards any target within 100 yards causing blunt force physical damage +total elemental affinity% of your maximum damage. Targets hit by body slam will be stunned for 5 seconds

Usage Limit: Up to 5 times. Current count 0/5

Active Affinity Ability 3: Offensive Energy Barrier

Sacrifice energy crystals or cores to build an appropriate energy barrier around you for 60 seconds. Your attacks will be lined with the energy from the barrier, increasing their attack power and draining the barrier in the process.

Energy crystals: from 1000 crystals to maximum of 5000. Energy cores are typically equivalent to 500 to 1000 crystals depending upon the type of energy.

Usage Limit: Up to 1 time. Current count 0/1

Bloodline armour acts like a mana kit, plugging itself to your armour to boost your defences and other attributes. The active skills cannot be used after their usage count is exhausted. The count resets every time you equip the armour.

Duration: 180 seconds

Cooldown: 6 hours

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She finally understood that Violet had fallen victim to ‘Elemental Feedback’ after slicing through Chaos mana layer. The impact force from the explosion affected both parties. She wondered how many more features she could unlock over time. Her good mood was spoilt by a message from Violet.

“Find attached tutorials for three basic and two advanced combat techniques. You have 1 hour to learn at least one basic and one advanced technique with 100% completion rate. If you succeed I’ll teach you better ones later”

“Damn! She is more vicious that the Main God System” Rain whined and stomped her feet.

“Don’t be a baby. At tier 4 you should be able to execute basic combat techniques in your sleep” Wu Lan giggled before dragging Rain into a training room nearby. The two ladies studied the tutorials for a while. Wu Lan already knew all the basic ones hence she decided to try out the advanced techniques. Rain chose “Illusory Barrier” that was the simplest of them all. Wu Lan’s assessment was spot on. “Illusory Barrier” was at least 10 times simpler than “Particulate Corrosion” that Rain had to learn during her tier 4 upgrade. She took 5 minutes to comprehend and execute the technique and another 10 minutes to execute it to perfection. She took additional 5 minutes to continuously execute it 50 times with over 100% completion rate.

She moved on to advanced combat technique “Spatial Sting”. She was intrigued by the 300 exploding spatial needles she summoned, effectively controlling them however, was a different story. She was spooked when she thought about Violet’s effortless control over 600 spatial blades that were a lot stronger than the needles. That was all the impetus she needed to push forward and learn the technique in the next 20 minutes.

She moved on to the other advanced combat technique “Time Warp”. She wondered why a combat technique that could shatter spells, domains and other combat techniques was classified as an advanced technique. The answer lay in the fact that despite its powerful effects, it offered little to no control over the execution or the results. There was a chance that the opponent’s poorly executed combat technique got strengthened as a result of ‘time warp’. It was also possible for those with excellent control over their own techniques to use its effects to further boost their technique’s power. This was the only technique involving time element that was below Bronze rank. Even Wu Lan was struggling with it for the last 10 minutes despite sizeable time affinity.

“I think Violet tasked us with this technique to test our mana sense” Rain analysed

“What do you mean?”

“Weren’t you wondering why she executes this technique differently every time? I think she subtly changes her movements from time to time depending on her mana sense”

“You are right. Time mana tends to flow in hordes. Her movements look like herding the entire horde into a desired shape. Eeks! How did I miss something so basic!” Wu Lan closed her eyes and stood still for a moment before attempting the combat technique. This time she fully focussed on mana sensing rather than steps of the combat technique. The training floor shook, releasing ripples of energy in every direction. Rain’s body shot outwards like a bullet, drilling a human shaped hole through the wall before emerging on the other side. Wu Lan held her hands on her face in horror watching a projectile break through the training room. She ran after her and slid out of the same hole before the auto-repair mechanism kicked in. How was this an advanced combat technique?


	72. Ego Thicker than Head

Rain’s stun effect wore off within a second but she still felt numb due to the excessive blunt force damage. It felt like she was hit by a truck and flung onto a granite wall.

“Do you have to wreck everything wherever you go?” Violet was frustrated at the sight of the wreckage. She let out a grunt to make her displeasure known before chanting holy light to heal Rain back to full HP.

“This was my doing. I had no idea the technique would have such a profound effect” Wu Lan made a sorry face.

“Man that hurt like hell. I am just lucky not to wake up in my own body soup. That was at least a Silver ranked technique to have that kind of effect” Rain blabbered. She was still numb from the impact and her vision was blurry.

“Even a basic ranked technique can be deadly effective when executed perfectly” Violet stated before checking out the video feed from the training room. She was impressed by the sheer volume of Time mana Wu Lan manipulated.

“You guys managed to master two techniques within the allocated time. Let’s move on to Bronze level techniques” Violet declared. They trained on “Spatial Smash” and “Time Acceleration” for the next six hours. Their practise session was interrupted by a call from Fithalia. Violet shared a few more basic and advanced techniques for them to learn and left them to practise on their own.

. . . .

Candlelight Commerce set the forums on fire once again after scores of summoning scrolls appeared at the auctions in Stone Forest city. Melancholic Smile had craftily packaged 2 Tier 4 scrolls with 3 Tier 3 scrolls before putting them up for auction. While the level 140 set equipment sold like hot potatoes, the summoning scrolls were closer to the member’s hearts since they offered immediate benefits. Even friendly super guilds were jumping about to get their hands on the summoning scrolls after 8 such packages sold for an average price of 28,000 gold. Level 140 set equipment ruled the roost with 30 guilds and adventuring teams picking a set each at an average price of 32,000 gold. 80 level 140 dark gold equipment pieces fetched between 3000 and 8000 gold coins.

Rain earned another 1,264,000 gold coins after deduction of service charge and restoration fees from the sales during the auction. She set another 100,000 gold coins for sale at the trade centre and it disappeared before she could blink. It was time to make a round trip and create more summoning scrolls. She called Violet to arrange for an exchange drop and informed Melancholic Smile of her trip in the next 30 minutes for the next round of scroll production.

“Our spies have confirmed that 30 experts from Mythology have gathered at the port city of Frozen Hammer. They will travel to their guild city at the southern frontier before flying over to Star Valley. They’ll probably arrive here in four to six hours” Fithalia reported.

“How many flight mounts does Mythology have?” Rain asked

“At least 50. We know of 18 Extraordinary and 32 Common ranked flight mounts”

“So we are expecting over 350 guests of honour. How long do they need to fly from their guild city?” Rain asked. Fithalia was shocked at Rain’s assessment. She had her doubts at the feasibility of 30 tier 4 experts trying to bulldoze a fortress with defensive and offensive magic arrays and towers, 10 tier 4 experts from allied forces and a divine dragon. Even Mythology won’t risk exposing all of their old monsters in a single battle.

“Common flight mounts take 3 hours. Advanced ones would be faster. When do you think they will attack?”

“Don’t worry! They will inform us well in advance. Their egos are a lot thicker than their heads. I’m sure they’ll ask for some ridiculous compensation before making a move. I’m counting on it” Rain chuckled. Fithalia had a confused look on her face while Violet merely sighed and shook her head in response. Rain picked up the supplies, left the fortress and teleported to the meditation room inside the Candlelight shop in White River City. She was impressed by how thoroughly Melancholic Smile had prepared for this session.

They finished picking the next round of monsters 50 minutes later, choosing a mix of economical and heavyweight monsters. Prior experience helped them become a lot more efficient in sealing contracts. They were able to contract 120 Tier 4 monsters and 100 Tier 3 monsters this time. 80 of the tier 4s were for sale. Rain pocketed 20 summoning scrolls that contained a mix of abyssal, void and phantasmal monsters, dealing heavily in supreme element powered and over tier attacks. 10 of these monsters could enter a berserk state in Star Valley owing to their racial or affinity traits. She returned to Star fortress after purchasing a few high potency potions, group movement scrolls and other trinkets.

Her intuition was validated when Mythology representatives paid a visit to the fortress and conveyed the guild’s demands. They even put up a forum post to make their demands public. Zero Wing had to vacate the Starlight Fortress in the next six hours and relinquish command to Mythology as a compensation for demolishing Demon God Town. Mythology would allow them to leave Western continent with their lives and not pursue the matter any further.

However, the rage on the forums in western continent was not Mythology’s demands but another thread labelled “Ego thicker than heads! QED.” The thread contained two video clips. The first clip showed Commander Fithalia asking an unknown Zero Wing expert about the timing of Mythology’s attack and her candid reply. The second video showed a meeting room full of allied experts laughing uncontrollably, some even choking on their laughter when Mythology’s two messengers made the compensation demand. It further showed Violet jailing one of the messengers after he tried to attack Fithalia who was shaking in fits of laughter, making dismissive hand gestures at the clueless messengers.

“Don’t worry I imprisoned him for his own safety. I’ll release him as soon as he apologises for attacking a council member within the fortress” Violet was the only one who was trying very hard not to laugh but even she cracked up before she could finish her sentence. The embarrassed messenger left the fortress, cursing and swearing.

. . . .

“Selling Mythology Insurance! Full Six Hours! Terms and Conditions don’t apply”

“When you hear a joke but understand its meaning only after one hour”

“Thickness alert! Thick head demands compensation from thick skin. Doesn’t get it. Did you?”

“What would Zero Wing do? Send another player to bully thousands of innocent and helpless Mythology players?”

. . . .

Everybody was super excited about this guild from the eastern continent that had a habit of hogging the news for all kinds of weird reasons. The image of a giant elemental flipping the bird was still fresh in their memories. They hoped to see more fireworks from the guild that had registered so many firsts in the western continent without having any significant presence. Many pointed out the fact that Mythology was a well-oiled behemoth while Zero Wing was just an upstart and a thoroughly insane guild. Everyone agreed that victory or defeat wasn’t guaranteed but glory and entertainment were. They would have written any other guild off by now. Zero Wing didn’t disappoint when it issued a response from its official handle exactly six hours later.

“Dear Mythology! It pains us to see a great guild begging. If you need a fortress in the Star Valley so badly why not capture one? It shouldn’t be too difficult for such a high and mighty guild like yourself“

They wanted to post a response earlier but decided against it. Mythology’s attack was a foregone conclusion. There was no reason to maintain appearance anymore. Rain wanted to wait for Wu Lan to recover her soul level above 50% to allow her to cast spells, though at much higher mana and concentration costs. Rain used the last five hours to pick up her first Silver Combat Technique ‘Time Freeze’.


	73. They Came, They Saw, Grrr! They were Eaten

It didn’t take long for Mythology to respond to the insinuation. A portal opened in the sky a thousand yards above the fortress and hundreds of tier 4 players wearing Mythology’s emblem started pouring out of it. Rain was amazed when Violet informed her of the spatial disturbance even before the portal took shape.

“I’m going to make them fall to their deaths. Get ready to blast them the moment they crash land” Rain informed Wu Lan and Violet before blinking out of the fortress. She camouflaged herself 10 yards above the portal opening and waited for Mythology’s forces to assemble.

Levitation Slam!

A strong magnetic force ripped through the flight domains of 500 players. The gravitational force around them suddenly increased by five times. They were sent crashing down below at immense speeds.

Wu Lan thought about blasting them with a ‘Starfire Burst’. She suddenly changed her mind and opened a spatial gate below them instead. Mythology players had no chance to avoid that portal and were whisked away to unknown lands.

“Where did you send them?” Rain was confused but she trusted Wu Lan’s judgement.

“Those monsters must be starving. They need to eat too. I hope they share” Wu Lan chirped. She had opened a cross continental spatial gate to underground tunnels of Ancient Rock city. The entire group of tier 4 experts were fed to the superior mythic faux saint monsters, ensuring 5 times death penalty. These players would be missing from the game for at least 7 days due to soul weakening and attribute loss after being devoured.

“Cool. Seems they don’t need to work too hard to feed themselves from now onwards” Rain mused, while watching the EXP bank slowly tick upwards.

“Not Cool! That’s cheating. We didn’t even get a chance to lift a finger” Fithalia whined.

“Oops! They are not coming back for the next 7 days. You’ll have to wait for the next batch” Rain giggled. “Let’s go train again” she nudged Wu Lan who was showing signs of fainting from exhaustion after casting an over-tier mega gate spell in a weakened soul state. Wu Lan collapsed on the floor after reaching the training room. She had drained all her concentration in the process.

Rain powered a rejuvenation hex and waited for her to recover. She borrowed the signet ring and teleported over to pick up the loot. She was happy that the monsters were earning their keep. She returned with the loot five minutes later. Violet was already waiting for her in the training room.

“Why didn’t you equip the bracers? Not suitable for you?” Rain noticed Violet still wearing her old equipment.

“Really? Don’t you know the minimum requirement is level 150. I am still 20 short” Violet replied

“Oh that’s very simple to fix” Rain looked at the experience bank. The demons and mythology demon players contributed around 1.25 trillion EXP. She transferred 106 billion EXP to Violet bringing her to level 135. Three tier 3 level reduction attributed gemstones allowed Violet to equip the bracers.

“Holy Tick! You are such an EXP hog. So much for just 5 levels” Rain could not hold back her astonishment at Violet’s class being extraordinary. Violet was similarly stunned at the sight of a divine artefact.

“I can pump in more but I am worried others might become suspicious if you gain too many levels so quickly”. Rain needed no confidentiality agreements with Violet.

“I know. I secretly pray more demonic forces attack our fortress so that I can level up quickly” Violet sighed.

“Want to raid another fortress with me?” Rain explained her purpose for coming to western continent. She had to wait for Wu Lan to recover fully. The training room environment was helping her recover 1% soul level every two hours.

“Sure. We need to fulfil our promise to Mythology first” Violet hinted at destroying the nearest city.

“Hahaha. I thought you’ll never ask” Rain giggled. Another message was posted to the forums through the official Zero Wing handle.

. . . .

“Dear Mythology! The last batch of 500 Tier 4 players you sent over didn’t even last one full second. Do not worry though. We miss you guys so much that we have decided to pay you a visit instead. Hopefully this will teach you the consequences of provoking Zero Wing.

We request our friends in Southern Ridges City and other neutral parties to evacuate within the next 24 hours. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. We promise to make it a great show to make up for it”

. . . .

Southern Ridges City was the only intermediate city in the whole of western continent. It was also the only city to exist on a level 120 territory at the southern end of Silver Pine Kingdom. Mythology had pumped in a lot of resources into the city. It could easily fend off demonic armies and monster attacks due to its excellent offensive and defensive capabilities. Even hundreds of mythic monsters hadn’t been able to get past its defensive barrier that suppressed anyone within 300 yards by a staggering 40%. The city was also host to a scenic landscape due to its proximity with a mountain range, an endless desert and the vast seas. Over 1,500,000 players from Mythology and its partner guilds had access to the city and the abundant resources around it.

Zero Wing’s allies started withdrawing from the city after Mythology attacked the fortress. They knew Violet would deliver on her words no matter what. They were happy that they would finally get a chance to see her true strength. Mythology on the other hand was having trouble digesting the series of events. Their tier 4 players had been locked out of their gaming accounts and were busy narrating harrowing tales of monsters sealed inside a subterranean world. Most were instantly killed upon stepping out of the portal. A few lasted a while longer through stealth and invisibility but were soon discovered and crushed. The last few lasted more than 8 seconds because the monsters were fighting among themselves over food. Their auras were so menacing that they were suppressed beyond 15% merely by standing close to them. Their movement speed and reaction time was dulled. Mana in the area was so turbulent that they couldn’t blink or teleport out to safety.

Their worst fears were confirmed when Cold Shadow deciphered the identity of the monsters. She firmly pointed fingers on Demon Heart and World Domination to be the culprits behind the scene. It was obvious to her that they joined hands with Zero Wing to bring the faux saint monsters to the western continent. Zero Wing knew about the nesting grounds of these monsters and opened a portal to feed their forces to them. She dismissed any possibility of Zero Wing having the capability to open portals across the continents. Only tier 5 gate spells could achieve such an outcome and such spells were rarer than a phoenix's feather. They had extensively investigated this possibility but were shocked to find that even the most accomplished NPCs in the western continent didn't have access to such spells. The fact that only three Zero Wing experts arrived in the continent instead of 3000 or more, proved her theory.

“I think you are overly concerned about the threat to Southern Ridges City. I would have considered it credible if Black Flame issued this threat. It seems that everybody in the guild is trying to act like Black Flame these days. Their arrogance has shot through the roof. They will only make a joke out of themselves when they are blown to bits by the spitfire dragon cannons stationed there” Cold Shadow analysed.

“I hope you are correct but I have no choice but to take this threat seriously. You have been in the eastern continent far too long to keep up with the threats here. I have heard their leader Violet Cloud singlehandedly defeated the 300 strong Hell Legion, including Hell Rush who has been a thorn in our flesh for a long time. One of the three newest additions packs dozens of large scale destruction spells, another has a giant demon elemental form with a powerful destruction spell and a monstrous domain that permanently drains player’s levels, and the third one has only shown a teleportation spell so far. Our spies have reported that this third lady is probably the most powerful among the three, probably even stronger than Violet herself. What pains me most is that we haven’t even been able to uncover their identities”

“You think they will be able to get past our defences?”

“That would be preposterous! The barrier won’t even shake if hit by a peak tier 5 spell. I am only worried that we would be found lacking if we allow those attackers to escape with their lives. We’ll have to expend a lot of resources to counter those four Zero Wing players”

“You shouldn’t worry too much about it Hall Master. We’ll use the opportunity to wrest the Crescent Sands City from Divine Tribe in the Silvermoon Empire. We have already finished our preparations for the assault. They will definitely move their trump card legion to assist Zero Wing in the battle for Southern Ridges City. It would be fun to look at their faces after they lose everything” a thin and frail youth reported with a smile.

“Good. You’ll be in-charge of taking Crescent Sands City. Inform Blitzkrieg of my orders that none of the attackers are allowed to escape with their lives. He is free to deploy any or all of the guild resources to make it happen. I need a report every 3 hours. You guys get to work” the hall master concluded the meeting. He still had an ominous feeling about the whole exercise. Zero Wing’s latest antics were too smart, random and forceful to counter with an effective strategy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those wondering about Violet's extraordinary class. Here is a link  
> [ **Birth of the Stargazer Saint**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26340295)


	74. Sovereign Silver Legatee

Ripples of chaos spread throughout the western continent. Assailing Southern Ridges City was an impossible task. Nobody was insane enough to challenge a city that was armed with war weapons to the teeth and boasted of an impenetrable defensive barrier. There were many who were sceptical of Zero Wing’s capability to deliver on their promises.

. . . .

“It seems Zero Wing has bitten more than it can chew. It would sad to see their bubble burst so soon”

“Arrogance! Sheer arrogance! Was there a need to set themselves up for a miserable failure after gaining the upper hand?”

“Black Flame’s silence is more deafening than his words. He’s hiding behind the curtains to save his skin when this mediocrity explodes on his face”

. . . .

However, Zero Wing was the epitome of insanity. Discussions on forums had moved on from ‘if’ to ‘how’ this insane guild would breach the impenetrable security barrier that defied the burliest of monsters so far. Several frivolous and mischievous intelligence reports were leaked through anonymous accounts to create paranoia amongst the masses.

. . . .

“Waiting for Zero Wing to unleash another weapon of mass destruction! I heard their guild leader acquired a legendary weapon in their last raid”

“Get ready for thousands of flying ships to blot the sky. I can’t wait for the blackout!”

“Forget flying ships. Zero Wing has secured the aid of the mysterious death reaper from the eastern continent. Together they will unleash a legion of dragons!”

. . . .

It was obvious from the targeted misinformation campaign that Mythology was relishing the opportunity to set Zero Wing up for an epic failure. Zero Wing's studied silence over such reports flummoxed a lot of experts. Their unease grew over time and exploded into widespread panic. Nobody had a clue what Zero Wing intended to do. Their restlessness and lack of control over the situation ruffled a lot of feathers.

Even fence sitters like Violet Sword were caught in the storm. They were friendly to both Mythology and Zero Wing. A lot of neutral parties and adventurer teams approached them to step in to plug the madness before it engulfed the entire continent. All these parties were thunderstruck after learning about the dubious methods Mythology engaged to force Zero Wing to submit to them in the eastern continent. Violet Sword refused to arbitrate the matter.

“The currents of hatred run deep. Mythology barks while Zero Wing bites. It seems that the chaos of eastern continent is finally spilling over to western continent” Instructor Torres sighed.

“What baffles me is guild leader Black Flame’s silence over the matter. His one command will put an end to this madness” Wildfighter questioned

“Mythology asked for it. I’m sure he would step in if anyone else was involved. I recently learnt that the invasion of Zero Wing City was ordered by Mythology” Crimson Star shook his head in disbelief.

“Zero Wing is too predictable. They live by the sword. One day they will die by it as well. They are the best friends you ever make and worst enemy you ever pick. Mythology will have to relent in order for this chaos to end” Torres weighed in.

“Wont Violet listen to you?” Wildfighter asked.

“That girl is both patient and stubborn. She will finish what she started. Something must have happened for her to react this way. That city is doomed for sure. Only Gods can stop its destruction. We should pull out our investments before we become collateral damage” Torres only had words of admiration for Violet.

“If that city falls then no other city can claim to be safe. I hope Mythology learns its lesson this time” Crimson Star nodded in approval.

. . . .

Hell Rush was excited to watch Violet in action. He had been working exceptionally hard to raise his combat standards and was eager to challenge her again. He had the Hell legion in top shape and ready to move out at a moment’s notice. He was surprised when his guild leader asked him to covertly assist Divine Tribe in Crescent Sands City rather than joining the raid on Southern Ridges City. Divine Tribe was trying to move its Silver Lion legion to Starlight fortress but was alerted to a heavy deployment of cloaked players towards its eastern borders. Their fears were further reinforced when they received a collaboration offer from Netherworld Empire to lure Mythology’s forces into a trap and eliminate them with a pincer attack.

. . . .

Rain and Wu Lan were clueless about the chaos outside the fortress. They were busy training, learning new combat techniques and perfecting the ones they already learnt. Violet was in another training room trying to master a strengthening technique that Wu Lan taught her. She still had vivid memories of the figurines in the ‘chamber of learning’ and Wu Lan’s inputs brought some of those memories to the fore. She experimented with spatial techniques followed by illusory techniques, to further strengthen them. She even tried to combine different combat techniques to test their compatibility. She tasted success 18 hours later when she combined “Time Warp” with “Spatial Compression” to create her own personal combat technique.

Mana within 100 yards compressed into a cylindrical annular shape 20 yards around Violet. It froze for a moment before radically expanding outwards in a radial pattern. The explosion shattered the spatial mana into pebble sized particles. The impact of the explosion was so vigorous that the training room shook for a few seconds while trying to absorb the impact of the destructive forces.

System: Congratulations! You have created an Advanced Silver Combat Technique. Please name your combat technique.

Violet was stunned to hear the notification. She had combined an advanced combat technique with a silver combat technique to create an advanced silver combat technique. Things kind of added up perfectly. She decided to call it “Temporal Clap”.

Another system notification welcomed her after she specified the technique's name.

System: Congratulations! You are the first player to create an Advanced Silver Combat Technique. Rewarding one Silver Legacy Orb, one Epic title 'Sovereign Silver Legatee' and a Lesser Legendary Treasure Chest.

A sparkling orange orb appeared before her as soon as the system notification ended.

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[Silver Legacy Orb] (Lesser Legendary Rank Item)

Can record up to eight advanced Silver level (or below) combat techniques that were created by you. Players may learn the combat techniques in immersive environments. Each attempt will cost 100 magic crystals.

Cooldown: 1 hour after each use.

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[Sovereign Silver Legatee] (Epic Title)

Expenditure when executing combat techniques is reduced by 25%. Expenditure is reduced by another 5% when executing combat techniques created by the title holder. Enjoy the status of Count in any city, kingdom, or empire. Adventurer associations will acknowledge you as a 5 star adventurer.

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Violet was contemplating how to strengthen and improve her combat technique. The system wasn't capable of specifying the technique's completion percentage. She had to experiment a few more times to uncover and expand the boundaries of her technique. She was completely oblivious to the destruction she unleashed outside since the training room was intact after the shockwaves subsided. Rain and Wu Lan, who trained in a separate room hundreds of yards away weren’t spared when the vibrations reached them seconds later. They were whipped by invisible energy fluctuations and flung into the air. They struggled to maintain their balance when they got up on their feet moments later. They ran out of the training room to a ghastly site of stones and rubble lying all over the floor.


	75. Grand Welcome Party

Rain and Wu Lan weren’t the only ones freaked out by the damage.

“What did you guys do this time?” a distraught voice caught their attention. Fithalia was having trouble coming to terms with one explosion after another since these two ladies arrived. This was definitely the last straw! She was mad and seething with anger. This damage would take at least 50 seven luminaries crystals to repair.

“It wasn't us!” Both Rain and Wu Lan spoke in unison, pleading their innocence. They too were spooked by the sight. Didn’t this fortress survive the Great War?

“Where is Violet?” Rain asked

“She said she would be in the training room” Fithalia replied. It took her a while to comprehend the meaning of her own words.

“Shit!” The three ladies ran towards the only training room that was currently occupied. They got within 10 yards of the room before their bodies shot out like projectiles, crashing into the mansion’s reception room. They decorated different sections of the wall before it collapsed, depositing them on the floor, and burying them under more rubble and stones from the roof. The monstrous impact damage forced them into a stunned state. Resistance was impossible. They could only endure the damage piled on by the rocks, stones and other wreckage pounding their bodies. The carnage stopped only after there wasn’t any semblance of a roof left above their heads.

Rain recovered from the stun effect after one second. She lay buried under a huge pile of stones, writhing in pain and fighting a battle against her flickering consciousness. She was too blurry, weary and hesitant to approach the training room door. She dug her torso out of the wreckage, took out her staff and shot a supercharged bolt into Violet’s training room. Violet sat in a lotus position, meditating and deeply focused on analysing her technique to identify areas of improvement. She knew something was missing despite the last experiment being extremely satisfactory. The bolt passed through the room’s wall like a knife through tofu and stung Violet’s neck. The nasty prick was irritating enough for her to rush out of the room in a fit of rage.

“Violet please stop!” was all Rain could utter before her head dropped back into the rubble. Violet was aghast at the ruins of the reception room. The walls of the training room disintegrated into fine dust the moment she touched them. She had no idea her training caused so much havoc. Wu Lan recovered five seconds later and poked her head out of the rubble with a clueless look on her face. Fithalia recovered a few seconds later and shook off a heavy stone slab that almost smashed her to pulp. She coughed, cleaned her face and rubbed her eyes to have a good look at the surroundings. Violet still had her hands on her face in horror.

“You could heal us for a change” Rain blurted, without raising her head. They were lucky to be tier 4. Anybody below tier 4 could have been disintegrated by that attack. Those words immediately shook Violet out of her stupor. She cast ‘holy light’, ‘holy prayer’ and ‘chain rejuvenation’ and dug everyone out. The ladies sat in a corner, shaken and stirred, and in complete silence. Nobody spoke a word for a long time. The impasse was broken when a cat came running in and jumped onto Wu Lan’s lap. The cat coughed out a twinkling pearl and put it into her hands.

“You went to fetch this for me? Thank you so much!” Wu Lan spoke in an adoring high pitched voice. She ingested the pearl and burst into epileptic fits a while later. A white fog erupted from her eyes, ears and mouth, and enveloped her head. Runic symbols started manifesting in the space around her and merged with her body, etching tattoos on her skin.

“She is losing a lot of stamina too quickly. We should do something!” Violet panicked. The cat however, beat them to it. It scratched a few insignias on the ground before dragging Wu Lan’s body over them. Everyone felt their bodies getting strengthened as a result. The phenomenon continued for the next two minutes. Fithalia’s jaws were wide open the entire time. She had to slap herself to check if she was still sane. They had gained almost 5% to 8% stamina, physique, concentration, soul state and fortitude as a result of the strange ritual. Wu Lan was a bit pale when she woke up again.

“Did she grow a third eye?” Rain wondered. Luckily the illusion around her held steadily all this while.

“Are you feeling alright your highness?” A charmingly seductive voice caught their attention.

“When did you become so hot!? Auerbeck!” Rain was the first one to respond. Fithalia was constantly slapping herself by now.

“Lord Auerbeck! You look awesome! Glad to have you back” Violet greeted the dashingly handsome youth in front of her.

“Glad to be of service Boss Violet. Seems quite a bit happened while I was away. What did I miss?” the youth scratched the back of his head, in a reluctantly sorry gesture while looking at the remains of the reception area.

“Oh nothing serious. It was just a training exercise. No worries. Nobody got hurt” Violet bit her lips. There was a tinge of embarrassment in her voice.

“Commander Fithalia! I know I am handsome. Please stop staring. It’s awkward” Auerbeck smiled at the thoroughly stunned woman.

“Ah. I. I am. I am so sorry. It’s too much to take in. I am just overwhelmed. Please excuse me” Fithalia replied. It was her first time meeting a humanized monster. She walked away in a dizzy dream like state.

“I totally get it. You have nothing to apologise for” Auerbeck replied with a smile.

“So I guess congratulations are in order!” Violet asked

“Well I managed to overcome my trial and survive. Frankly I am happy to be back. I was a lot more worried about this place than my trial. Let me go and take down those decorations”

“I’d suggest you hold on to that for a while. We have a city to destroy in a few hours from now. I don’t want them to freak out and surrender too quickly” Rain intercepted.

“As you wish. I’ll be around if you need any assistance” Auerbeck bid his farewell and disappeared in a flash.

. . . .

“Damn! We’ll need lots of seven luminary crystals to repair this damage” Violet sighed.

“Do you know where we can find them?” Rain asked

“In the treasury at Southern Ridges City” Violet winked. The ladies burst out into laughter and discussed their battle plans. Wu Lan’s evolution was complete and her soul level hovered around 80% range. The 28 levels she lost in the process were immediately restored by Rain. She powered a ‘soul rejuvenation’ hex under them and restored it back to 100%. Violet was thrilled to receive a second boost to her soul state.

The ladies stepped out of the dilapidated building 30 minutes before the deadline. Violet assigned several duties to various allied partners. Rain secretly instructed the commanders to report inflated troop numbers for the assault force tasked with the upcoming battle. They purposely wanted to alert the spies to a massive troop build up for the assault on Southern Ridges City. Fithalia and MacAffrey were handed one tier 4 summoning scroll each and dispatched to the barrens near the Crescent Sands City. Rain chose the location to allow them to assault the rear lines of Mythology’s forces. Stinging Rhapsody was handed three tier 4 summoning scrolls that reeked of death aura. This was a countermeasure to assist him in defending the fortress while they were away.

. . . .

Three cloaked figures stepped out of a portal that opened 2000 yards away from the main entrance of Southern Ridges City. They sensed hundreds of cannons, ballista, catapults and pulse cannons locking on to them. Mythology had tirelessly reinforced the city defences with extra runes and war weapons to thwart any mediocrity Zero Wing wanted to pull off. Rain could sense the chaos in the environment when nobody emerged from the portal even after 5 seconds of its opening. Three players had shown up to challenge 3 million city defenders that comprised at least 2000 Tier 3 NPCs and over 1000 Tier 4 players and NPCs. Was this a joke?

“Really? That’s all the forces you could muster? Seems your allies have more brains than you do” a tall robust man spoke from the tower above the city gate. Not just Mythology, the entire western continent was discussing this unbalanced show of strength. Zero Wing was insane beyond their wildest dreams.

“Magistrate Blitzkrieg, you honour us by hosting such a grand welcome party. We were worried you guys would chicken out and run away or hide. There is no fun in blowing up an empty city. Let’s start shall we?” Violet retorted in an equally mocking tone.


	76. Poor Mythology Bastards

Everybody watching from afar felt cold sweat trickling down their heads upon hearing those words. There wasn’t even a shade of fear in Violet’s eyes. They wondered if those cannons and ballista looked like carrots and radishes from where she stood. Even the mightiest of tier 4 players could only take a few tier 5 attacks before they disintegrated. The ground under their feet shook when the cannons fired.

Tens of thousands of arrows, spells, shells, spears, stones and energy beams greeted the three ladies. Everyone expected them to use a lifesaving skill to escape certain death. They were bewildered when the ladies simply walked through the shower like a stroll through their backyards. Everything seemed to be purposely avoiding them. Explosions rocked the terrain hundreds of yards ahead of them, disturbing the trajectories of every arrow, spell or boulder in their vicinity. Only those war weapons with a massive AOE splash damage seemed to have any effect on the ladies. However even those attacks fizzled out after a promising debut.

“Is this spiritualisation realm?”

“I don’t have a clue. The attacks seem to pass through them like they are ghosts”

“How do they flail so effortlessly from side to side? Watching them make me dizzy”

The visual effects were the result of a synchronised execution of “Illusory Barrier” by the three ladies. More and more barriers piled up when they executed the combat technique to perfection with every step. Each layer added a prismatic effect, creating an optical illusion that obfuscated their actual location. They were almost 100 yards behind the area being bombarded and safe from the AOE effects after a few seconds. The erratic flailing movement was a side effect of new layers replacing the ones destroyed by the attacks.

The onlookers wondered if the entire sequence was choreographed and rehearsed prior to the declaration of war. They had trouble trusting their eyesight. While everyone was having trouble wrapping their head around the weird phenomenon, something even more bewildering started happening within the city walls. A series of explosions burst through the city defences. Some war weapons jammed and exploded in the face of their operators, shredding other war weapons around them. Some spells and arrows randomly changed their trajectories and hit their own allies.

“Did Zero Wing use the past 24 hours to sabotage the city defences? Nobody saw that one coming!”

“Subterfuge at its prime! Best crooks ever!”

None of them had a clue that these were the effects of ‘Aura of Malfunction’. Nobody warned them not to launch so many attacks against the Champion of Chaos! The bigger the force the greater the confusion.

The monstrous barrage of attacks ceased after a minute of exuberance. Violet’s group stood at the edge of the desert around 1000 yards away from the city. Arrows, scorched pits, fumes and holes decorated every inch of their path, yet none of them managed to land a hit.

“Mmmmhh. There are too many people watching. It makes me feel restless and uneasy” Wu Lan whined in a sheepish tone at her discomfort, causing the other two ladies to burst into laughter.

“Don’t worry. We can easily fix that” Violet chirped. A series of hand and feet movements followed. She started glowing like the sun when she pumped mana into her bloodline. Massive whirlpools of mana hovered around her head. She looked like a Goddess who was about to unleash her wrath upon the hapless city in front of her. Mythology threw everything they had on her, yet nothing could get past the “Spatial Wall” she erected. A pall of gloom and desperation descended on the defenders when the mana surrounding Violet became so thick that it painted the sky in hues of platinum grey. Judgement day had arrived. They ran for cover in anticipation of a super spell coming their way, praying for the defensive barrier to save them all.

Violet raised her hands, as if commanding her legions to rise from the ashes and do her bidding. Tiny snake like eddies rose behind her. They quickly morphed into a series of raging typhoons, lifting sand into the air and shooting it up to cover the sky. A massive sandstorm assaulted the city, engulfing the entire 5000 yard area ahead of them. Wu Lan joined the party using a mix of mana manipulation and teleportation to rain sand everywhere. Visibility dropped to 10 yards as seamless streams of sand brushed against the defensive barrier. Rain used the opportunity to covertly cast “Particulate Corrosion” on the defensive barrier.

“Do you want to destroy the barrier or cut through it?” she asked Violet.

“Obviously destroy it. I haven’t gotten there yet”

“No worries. Just attack that central patch 30-40 seconds later”

Wu Lan took charge of maintaining the sandstorm, freeing Violet up to execute the next step of her attack.

Advanced combat technique, Illusory Flood!

Bronze combat technique, Illusory Dome!

Violet flooded the 500 yards area around her with illusory copies of herself. A translucent dome enclosed them, hiding their life and mana signatures, and further isolating them from prying eyes. Rain had her hands inside her mouth watching Violet pump mystical energy streams from her fully charged bloodline into her legacy core. The core pulsated and expanded in size shooting streams of black lightning in every direction. She knew Violet was supercharging her core to execute some awesome spell or technique. She immediately swapped the ‘God Slayer’ title with ‘War God’s executioner’ to boost everybody’s attributes.

More war weapons were fired. More explosions rocked the city walls. Nobody had any idea who they were targeting. Everybody watching the scene was at the edge of their seats. Nobody had any idea what Zero Wing was doing. Everybody agreed that they were trying to deliver their promise of a grand show.

Wu Lan took a break from playing with sand 10 seconds later and drew a hex under the patch identified by Rain. They were stumped when the sand started percolating through the energy barrier seconds later, driving the defenders nuts. The hex made the energy barrier porous. It stood intact but was thoroughly ineffective against the joint attack of Rain and Wu Lan. Violet nodded to Rain, nudging her to take over defensive duties and spent the next 10 seconds writing runes in the air, preparing her super spell of doom. People observing through magic mirrors almost fell off their seats watching soccer field sized burning boulders materialising around 2000 yards of the city. Rain was panicking since her mana sense and blind vision clearly portrayed her own rendition of how the world would end. There was something about this spell that shook her to the core. She was not alone.

System: Recognised Tier 5 Super Spell “Space Liberation”. Do you wish to record it in the “The Grimoire of Over-tier Spells”?

Rain wanted to crap in her pants. Violet was already casting peak Tier 5 super spells. She had access to two of them but she hadn’t bothered to learn them yet. She pitied those defenders who couldn’t even see what was coming for them. “Poor Mythology Bastards” she mumbled. Hundreds of boulders rained on the city, shattering the defensive barrier like a sledgehammer crushing a sheet of glass. Thundering explosions blotted out the screams. The defenders didn’t even have a chance to move. Many were crushed to death while many more were blown to bits when the boulders exploded on impact. Ironically, this was only the beginning of their nightmare. Over 1 million defenders had lost their life in the initial attack. Their souls rose again in the form of space elementals and locked on to the nearest target they could find, unleashing mayhem in the city.

Everybody was aghast when the sand storm subsided. Two fifths of the city was pulverised to dust and an army of elementals was running amok through the barricades, stomping and squishing players to death. Violet looked pale and weakened after casting the super spell. She had drawn too much power from her bloodline and was currently facing a backlash. Wu Lan powered a rejuvenation hex under her feet. Rain buffed it up with “Silent Degradation”. Though the city wasn't fully destroyed, the message was loud and clear. Dust had settled to reveal more dust. It was all that was left. The ladies arrived at the ruins of the city gate a while later.

Violet wasn’t done yet. She nodded to thank the ladies before launching “Meteor Storm” on a section of NPCs blocking the elementals. This spell was a tiny tiered down version of the super spell she launched a while back and dealt damage over a 500x500 yards area. The NPCs managed to block the individual meteors but couldn’t prevent them from exploding and shattering their blockades.

“Are you going to have fun all by yourself? Can we play?” Wu Lan was getting impatient. The ‘cringey’ tone made everyone shudder. Super large-scale spells were rare at this stage of the game. The declaration only meant that these ladies were loaded.

“Hahaha. Can boost me up? I want to try something new” Violet responded. A thin mana thread boosted her up to tier 5. Violet made several swift hand gestures, befuddling both Rain and Wu Lan.

“Astral blades!” Wu Lan couldn’t hold her excitement at the hundreds of blades taking shape using the three supreme elements. The blades were further strengthened with a strange mystical energy like goo. The defenders were puzzled since the system hadn’t given them any indication of the intended target area of this spell. Their knowledge of the game was severely shaken. Only the more knowledgeable magic users among them knew that it was not a spell but sheer mana manipulation. It was impossible to fathom how someone could conjure and control close to a thousand blades.

Violet continued to combine the blades and strengthen them over the next few seconds until a single 100 feet giant blade remained. The blade moved in on a juicy target, instantly decapitating the Tier 4 NPC captain with a single hit. It rose once again and swiped through the entire eastern wall, cutting through everything in its path. It finally struck and exploded at the base of a massive defence tower, shattering its foundations and silencing hundreds of war weapons that were raining hell over them.

The attack forced the defenders to regroup and launch an all-out attack on the three ladies. Hundreds of magic arrays blotted out the sky, most of them targeted Violet. However a crooked rift burst through them, swaying from side to side in an erratic motion, splitting the magic arrays before they could gather enough mana. The magic arrays exploded in colourful fireworks, lighting up the sky. Everybody was fixated at the shy lady standing behind Violet who had neutralised the attacks through a “Spatial Rift”.

The defenders were smiling despite the failed attack. They had anticipated that the ladies would use a lifesaving skill to fend off the first attack. They launched another vicious attack. Thousands of magic arrays blotted out the sky. Everybody expected them to use another lifesaving skill or flee the coverage range of the spells. However, instead of running away they moved much closer towards each other. Group invulnerability spell? The defenders smirked at the idea since they specifically planted a few invulnerability breaking spells in the mix.

The ladies waited a while for the magic arrays to stabilise. Violet finally made a move, executing a series of slow and pacey manoeuvres. Nobody had any clue which combat technique could counter hundreds of offensive spells. They were about to be served the latest delicacy from Violet’s kitchen.


	77. Consequences of Provoking Zero Wing

Space within 150 yards started to contract at a rapid pace, surrounding the ladies in a doughnut shaped ring as Violet’s arms closed inwards with her palms stretched wide open. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead when she lunged forward to thrust a forward press. Her palms converged in a clapping action, halting the spatial contraction 10 yards away from them.

Advanced Silver Combat Technique: Temporal Clap!

The clap shattered the threads of time, forcing the space to expand outwards radially at immense speeds, unleashing mammoth energy ripples and explosions in every direction. Thousands of magic arrays in the sky were rendered lifeless and inert when energy fluctuations fried the magical circuits powering them. Every structure within 500 yards disintegrated instantly. All the players and NPCs within 800 yards were flung into the air like projectiles. Tier 3 players lost over 90% HP. Those who survived the attack were crushed to death after their bodies smashed against the city structures. Tier 4 players lost 50-60% of their HP. They lost another 10% upon impact and were stunned for the next seven seconds. NPCs fared slightly better losing 40-45% HP with a lesser stun duration. Even the summoned space elementals weren’t spared. They were launched deep into enemy lines. Some of them exploded upon impact.

Rain finally understood what transpired in the training room. The difference between an ancient fortress and a man-made structure was for everyone to see. Not even a speck of dust remained on the ground. Violet had no reason to admire the view. She executed another combat technique to pace herself through the city.

Bronze Combat Technique, Time Acceleration!

The defenders watched her walk towards them at a normal pace, but were shocked to realise that it was only an afterimage. Violet had already arrived at the centre of the defending army and was busy executing another combat technique.

Silver Combat Technique: Time Freeze!

Advanced Silver Combat Technique: Temporal Clap!

Those who were stunned at the sight of Violet amongst them were too late to realise that they were actually frozen in time. They watched in horror as their guild mates and allies were launched in different directions, only to explode upon impact. They were relieved of their misery a short while later.

Advanced Combat Technique: Time Warp!

Even Violet was amazed at the result of chaining combat techniques in such a manner. She played with ‘Time Freeze’ with ‘Time Warp’ a few more times, shredding everything within 100 yards with each attempt. She got some clues about combining these two techniques into a single combat technique but was hesitant to experiment while facing focussed fire from all quarters. She crafted several illusory mazes to pin down the defenders. She played with her bracers, testing its skills and relishing their destructive power.

With the rest of the enemies pushed to the edge, Violet finally cut Rain and Wu Lan loose on the battered defenders. The duo made quick work of their captive targets, unleashing deadly spells and combat techniques. Violet switched to a support role to conserve her mana and concentration for the final push.

Only the city magistrate’s mansion stood before them five minutes later. The building had its own protective barrier and was packed to the brim. Almost 500,000 survivors rushed inside to take shelter and escape from Violet’s onslaught. “Bountiful Spring” ensured that the city was littered with loot from Violet’s kills. Rain and Wu Lan picked the battlefield clean of the loot before turning their attention to the heavily guarded building.

“Enough! This is as far as you can get” a thundering voice searing with rage welcomed the ladies at the gates of the magistrate’s building. Violet wanted to respond but was taken aback by Rain who burst into a maniacal laughter. She took out a couple of skeletal daggers, cut a round hole through the thick barrier and stepped inside. Violet and Wu Lan followed quickly. The defenders who escaped earlier were thoroughly freaked out at the sight. These ladies were unstoppable.

“Do you really wish to make an enemy of Mythology?” the voice bellowed. Rain couldn’t control her laughter despite Violet’s winks and nudges. She forced herself to stop out of respect.

“The real question is whether Mythology can afford to make an enemy of Zero Wing” Violet retorted. She wanted to rush in and tear that pathetic excuse of a human into shreds with her bare hands. That loser was the architect in chief of all direct and covert assaults on Starlight Fortress. She however, was the head of Zero Wing in the western continent and had to swap into diplomatic roles every now and then. She forced herself to rein in all the anger and frustrations due to her position in the guild, despite her repugnance.

“The city stands destroyed. I will allow you guys to leave with your lives if you apologise and surrender. I hope you have learnt your lesson and understood the consequences of provoking Zero Wing. You have two minutes to articulate your response Magistrate Blitzkrieg” Violet responded calmly in a stoic voice. The message was loud and clear for everyone. A super spell, a super blade, a super combat technique. Violet could wipe out any city by herself if she wished to.

“How despicable! You pests have forced my hand. Prepare to meet your end” Blitzkrieg pulled out an old and tattered scroll that reeked of mystical energy. Dark electricity flickered around the grey mist that surrounded the scroll. Even those watching from far away using magic mirrors, skipped a beat at the intense sense of doom emanating from the scroll. Blitzkrieg’s theatrics however didn’t cut any ice with Rain who was laughing hysterically again and it irritated him to the bone.

“Is something broken inside your head?” he spoke with blazing detestation.

“Pretty boy! Do you know what scroll you are holding?” Rain spoke, laughing incessantly. She was wondering if that loser knew that he would automatically become the first offering to the scroll, powering its doom lust. His soul would be the first to shatter, probably banning him from the game for at least 6 months. It was too steep a price for someone capable of reaching Tier 4 so early in the game.

“It’s a scroll that will end your pitiful existence” Blitzkrieg thundered. His words however only made Rain laugh louder. She felt pity for everybody inside the magistrate’s hall since they too would be consumed by the scroll a while later.

“Ok sure. Whatever. Though it’s not my business to question your stupidity, I still have to warn you that using that scroll will have much greater consequences than you imagine. You’ll not only doom yourself and your guild, you’ll also doom this entire kingdom. Is it worth provoking powers you don’t yet comprehend?”

“Says the chicken that’s about to become soup!” Blitzkrieg activated the scroll by sacrificing 1000 mana stones and started laughing like a maniac. Thick plumes of mystical energy emerged from the scroll and enveloped Blitzkrieg. Thundering dark electricity flooded the area. Mana went berserk. The whole space was pulsating with mystical energy ripples that suppressed everybody’s movement speed by 80% and increased gravity by 2 times.

“Prepare to get us out of here” Rain instructed Wu Lan. Rain didn’t waste any time, swapping her title back to “God Slayer” and summoned her doppelganger. They cast “Elemental Awakening” and equipped “Ring of Power” and “Ring of Undying Soul”, boosting themselves to tier 6.

“I can’t open a spatial channel” Wu Lan shrieked in pain. She clasped her head tightly and collapsed on the floor moments later. The words only made the madman’s laughter louder, however that laughter quickly turned into heart wrenching screams. The sounds became so guttural and shrill a while later that it was impossible to believe they came from a human.

“Consider this an act of mercy” Rain’s voice echoed through the courtyard as she and the doppelganger cast “Power Drain” on Blitzkrieg, reducing him to tier 2, level 90. They simultaneously cast “Sucker Punch” on him, extinguishing his life and putting him out of his misery. A myriad of cacophonous shrieks and angry hisses resulted due to her interference. She paid no heed to them. They cast “Power Boost”, “Power Pace”, “Soul Shield” and “Void Guard”. Rain picked up Violet, while the doppelganger picked up Wu Lan. They cast “Teleprompt” and zoomed out of the doomed zone. They ran like maniacs trying to put as much distance from the ruins of the city as possible.

An invisible chain snapped, sending both Wu Lan and Violet into paralytic shock the moment they crossed 3000 yards. They screamed in pain, collapsing into seizures and started frothing through their mouth. Rain could sense massive soul depletion in both the ladies through ‘Eye of Seer’ passive ability. She ran for another 1000 yards before stopping to take shelter behind a giant sand mound. Both she and her doppelganger drew “Soul Revitalise” through the ‘Hexotic Trap’ technique and powered them. Both the ladies instantly recovered 50 to 60% of their soul thanks to the effects of ‘power boost’ and their tier 6 state. They recovered from their comatose state and were awestruck by the intense power Rain radiated. They had already missed the system message that sounded moments ago.

Silver Pine Kingdom System Announcement: Zero Wing has acquired the city token for Southern Ridges City. The city will no longer be under Mythology’s jurisdiction. Guild Popularity reduced by 20,000.

The token was part of loot that Blitzkrieg dropped. It was thoroughly useless now.

“You are tier 5?” Violet asked in an incoherent voice, still groggy and unstable due to loss of stamina and concentration, along with soul level. Rain ignored her and powered “Cleansing fountain” below their feet. She lost 13% of her soul level as well but was saved from further damage by the ring.

“It’s best we return to the fortress while we still can” Rain summoned the void shadow hawk. They flew towards the Starlight fortress, watching numerous spatial rifts opening inside the shattered city. Streams of marauding monsters emerged from the rifts and started feeding on the rest of the Mythology players. A few monsters noticed them escape but didn’t give chase after sensing a tier 6 existence.


	78. Invasion of the Soul Eaters

“What happened there?” Violet breached the topic again after flying for half an hour.

“That idiot used a summoning scroll named ‘Soul of the Abyss’. He probably thought he was summoning a powerful monster from the abyss. He opened a rift in the process and summoned an entire army of Soul Eaters, the most notorious denizens of the Abyss. I was lucky to suppress him to Tier 2, denying their General the power to open a major rift to the western continent. We probably have bought ourselves a day or two to prepare” Rain explained

“Why didn’t you stop him by telling him exactly what it was?” Violet asked in an annoyed tone.

“And give him a chance to open a rift inside Star Moon Kingdom? You think these Mythology bastards are gentlemen?” Rain retorted. The message was loud and clear. Silver Pine Kingdom was doomed to fall in the next few days, unless they managed to scramble their defences in time or some major powers intervened. Those monsters wouldn’t dare to enter Star Valley until they adapted to its suppression. The vast stretch of the sea was another major deterrent. Mythology would have a tough time competing for resources of Star Valley with Southern Ridges City and Demon God town razed to rubble. Wu Lan opened a portal and the hawk flew through it to arrive above the Starlight fortress. A series of notifications welcomed them upon arrival.

God’s Domain Western Continent System Announcement: A player has opened a rift to the Abyss in Silver Pine Kingdom triggering a new expansion pack, "Invasion of the Soul Eaters". The Abyssal monsters will start their assault in 3 days’ time. Players and guilds alike can participate in the invasion to slay the monsters and earn merit points. After accumulating a sufficient amount of merit points, players can class-change into a new class. The guild that accumulates the maximum points will be awarded the administration rights to one of the kingdom’s main cities.

God’s Domain Western Continent System Announcement: Silver Pine Kingdom condemns Mythology for its role in opening an abyssal rift. Guild’s players will have to earn twice the merit points to qualify for new class or win administration rights. Guild’s lands and structures would be repossessed and auctioned to raise funds for the upcoming war. The guild’s administration rights to the Kingdom’s cities stand revoked with immediate effect.

God’s Domain Western Continent System Announcement: Silver Pine Kingdom commissions an open quest to collect 10 million soul crystals that drop randomly when a soul eater is slayed. Rewards will be split according to player contribution. Each crystal can also be exchanged for 1 merit point.

The announcements repeated throughout the western continent. Both Rain and Wu Lan looked at each other with bright shiny eyes after learning about the soul crystals. They had no interest in the new class or administrative rights.

. . . .

Mythology suffered another humiliating defeat at the hands of Divine Tribe and Netherworld Empire in the ravines of Crescent Sands City in the Silver Moon Empire. Those players were lucky enough to suffer a single death penalty compared to their counterparts in Southern Ridges City whose body and soul had been devoured by the abyssal monsters. Several videos started making rounds, comparing killing streaks of Hell Rush and Fithalia, with people taking sides and voting for their favourite killing moves. There was a tinge of humanity and struggle in those fights unlike the one man armies of Zero Wing.

Stinging Rhapsody welcomed the victors with a fine banquet to celebrate their dual victories over their common enemy. Two giant mirrors had been set up, displaying live feed of both battle sites. Rain’s intervention had thrown a spanner in Soul Eater Legion’s works, giving the Kingdom ample time to reinforce their defences and plan crusades. The ladies were further stumped when they walked into a fully restored Lord’s mansion.

“Boss Violet. I think he is trying to woo you over” Wu Lan chuckled. Stinging Rhapsody totally freaked out at those words. He had trouble constructing a coherent sentence. Rain tugged on to his shoulder and told him to take it easy.

“Boss Violet. These repairs are courtesy of commander Hell Rush. He hopes you will reserve a level 140 dark gold set equipment for him” He spoke in an embarrassed tone.

“This must have cost a lot more than that. How much did you spend on the restoration?” Violet asked with a straight face.

“180 seven luminaries crystals and 300 stacks of various legendary materials” Stinging Rhapsody spoke sheepishly. Everybody who heard those words froze for a moment. Violet recovered quickly and took control of the situation.

“Could I trouble you to book 35 level 140 dark gold set equipment for Hell Legion and a special set equipment for Commander Rush?” Violet was a bit surprised at the request. Each member of hell legion sported 4 to 5 pieces of Epic equipment. Hell Rush himself had a full suite of Epic armour and a few fragmented legendary items.

“Sure I’ll get it done. You require all plated ones or you want some casting types as well?” Rain asked the befuddled commander of Netherworld Empire’s fifth trump card legion, garrisoned within Star fortress. He was expecting 34-35 sets in return but Violet had been generous enough to offer an additional mysterious special set that he could only dream about. They worked out the specifics a while later.

“We’ll get you the set equipment in 3 days’ time. If you are keen we’ll sell you the equipment we picked from Mythology’s forces at 20% discount as a token of our gratitude” Violet nudged Rain to place the loot in front of commander Rhapsody. They had no clue how or where to look for so many seven luminary crystals. Hell Rush had saved them a lot of time and trouble. The extravagant loot was immediately gobbled up for another 50 seven luminaries crystals. They decided to logout and rest and recover their soul levels. They had a fortress to raid the next day.

. . . .

Candlelight Commerce set the forums on fire again after introducing level 130 fine gold and dark gold mana rebound shields. The shields could be clipped onto armour just like attributed gemstones and provided bonus defence and movement speed in addition to reflecting 10% to 15% physical and magical attacks back to the attackers. Third day of auctions saw summoning scroll packs hit a new high of 30,000 gold with 10 packs being sold. The level 140 set equipment were still the star attractions with 50 of them selling at an average price of 32,500 gold. 120 level 140 dark gold equipment pieces fetched between 3000 and 8000 gold coins. Melancholic Smile had requested them to be back the next day and promised to introduce another awesome product on the fourth and final day of the member auctions. Rain earned 2,011,000 gold coins after deduction of service charge and restoration fees from the sales during the auction. Rain set another 1,000,000 gold coins for sale at the trade centre, to be auctioned in batches of 50,000 every 2 hours.

Candlelight earned over a million gold in commissions alone in the last 3 days. The unique set of offerings had raised the expectations of their friendly guilds who were invited to a grand auction on the fifth day. A host of neutral guilds from both continents and other worlds made representations to be allowed to participate but were declined politely. Some of these guilds signed up with Candlelight Commerce to reinforce their friendly intentions towards Zero Wing but their curry favour did not cut any ice with Melancholic Smile. The memory of Ancient Barrier Scrolls being sold in a similar auction was still fresh in most people’s minds. They were sure that the items being auctioned had the power to turn the balance in favour of whoever acquired them. They were torn between thoughts of teaching Zero Wing a lesson and patiently waiting for guild leader Black Flame to return and negotiate a partnership with them. Destruction of Southern Ridges City had drilled the conclusion deep into their heads, that provoking the guild would only hasten their own decline.

. . . .

Mythology was reeling from a double whammy of losses. Their expulsion from the Silver Pines Kingdom hurt them more than both the battles combined. Their vice like grip on a resource rich kingdom allowed them to swiftly develop tier 3 combat runes much ahead of the competition. Shutting down of its facilities had derailed the development work on tier 4 combat runes. They were still clueless how Zero Wing managed to destroy their defensive barrier. There were abundant signs of war weapons being sabotaged. Players reported sand trickling through the barrier much before the super spell hit. Were they able to subvert the barrier using some dubious means? Zero Wing had gotten away with their secret methods thanks to the sandstorm they unleashed. Nobody had any seen or learnt anything in the ensuing chaos. They all had watched the footage multiple times and were convinced that the barrier would have survived the peak tier 5 super spell.

Violet was no fool. She knew that the super spell wasn’t sufficient to wreck the defensive barrier. This was the reason she was busy coating the base of the giant boulders with ‘Holy Annihilation’ mana before setting them in motion. The sandstorm helped her camouflage the finer details from everyone. That barrier was doomed to fall. She was surprised when it crumbled so easily at the location pointed by Rain, transferring the bulk of the devastation on the defenders below, instantly killing Tier 4 players who were too shocked to react in time.

There were only three items inside the legendary chest that Violet received from Heavenly Blue Saint Eliadi. A rare tier 5 super spell book, a fragmented legendary belt for spell casters and a legendary ring that could be equipped at tier 5. Wu Lan’s boost allowed her to equip the ring for the first time and taste its power. The effects of the ‘Sovereign Silver Legatee’ title were too awesome to ignore as well.

. . . .


	79. Burn the Spiders

Rain was surprised to find a huge package in her driveway. There was a note glued to it.

“Training session at 2PM. Power up the navigation unit to view the route and destination. Don’t be late”

She tore through the packing to find the barebones of “Monkey Racer Craft X”. The latest next gen bicycle was a rage amongst the teenagers. The spider silk carbon composite frame was tougher than graphene steel and lighter than a tennis racquet. The clip and twist assembly process ensured that the bicycle could be assembled and disassembled at will. The wheels could be deflated at the press of a button, allowing them to collapse to a quarter of their size. They could be inflated back to full size by plugging them to any power outlet. She spent half an hour assembling the bike and another 10 minutes to attach all the peripheral devices. She had a shock of her life when the navigation was powered up.

“Burn the spiders” the message flickered a few times before the adjustable windshield switched into a full blown navigational interface.

“It seems those two missing spiders have been located. Damn! I should have kept my identity a secret throughout” Rain mumbled. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. She was now more motivated than ever to cycle 60 km in the next 2 hours to look for X and find out what she knew. She hid the potions, spiders and their controllers before getting ready to roll out. She ordered a pickup from a fast food joint along the way and set off. She arrived at her destination 10 minutes before the scheduled time. X was already inside the training room.

“You are early. Give me some time to finish the simulation setup” X was busy configuring a console. Rain inspected the weapons rack and picked up a spear that looked like the replica of her in-game spear.

“Go easy on that one. It arrived a few days back” X cautioned her.

“What’s so special about this one?”

“It’s modelled after the death reaper’s spear. A lot of people are curious why a weapon like that exists. It’s too misbalanced to be a potent strike weapon. The tip, base and shaft are tilted at an unconventional angle. I doubt it was crafted to do forward thrusts and horizontal or vertical strikes. It’s impossible to use it as a javelin and hit a target. I have watched the reaper use it and found her methods ridiculous. Yet the damage they dealt were outrageous” X explained

“Interesting! You got any theories?”

“Many. I have a gut feel that it’s an energy powered weapon! It naturally angles in to prevent double kill if held properly. It offers you a greater degree of freedom when claiming the centre in melee spear play and it was meant for circular swipes. The shape does not give you any speed or strength benefits. The uses are too limited” X analysed the deviant spear. The smile on Rain’s face made her doubt her assessment. She watched her shaking the spear like a dumbbell, sensing for an optimal gripping spot. Rain shot forward moments later and threw the spear towards a target dummy over 200 yards away. X watched in horror as the spear accelerated in a straight line towards the dummy. The spear decapitated the dummy and continued forward, drilling a hole through the training room’s wall upon impact. The spear’s trajectory was unlike a javelin that arched and slowed down over time. It felt more like a torpedo zeroing in onto its target, accelerating along the way. Her jaws dropped at the physics defying display. She looked expectantly at Rain who seemed disappointed at the result.

Rain was no expert at spears or javelins. She was merely trying to emulate the flight trajectory of the spear during “Circle of Destruction” skill in the game. She held the spear near the centre, rather than the middle of centre and the tip. She rolled her fingers over the shaft to give it a spin upon release. The disruption was transferred over to the slightly angled base. The base moved in a circle, like a propeller powering a torpedo, accelerating it over time. The angular momentum allowed it to negate gravity and maintain an almost straight line trajectory towards the target, increasing the force of impact. The spear’s shape was intended to enhance both speed and strength when used correctly.

“How did you do that?” X was awestruck.

“I wanted to hit the dummy on the right. I released the spear a little earlier than expected. I should train harder before making another attempt” Rain said in an embarrassed tone. She had demonstrated something impossible even though her intended target was 20 yards off. X was still looking at her in astonishment. “When do we get started?” Rain tried to change the topic.

“Grab that stick and stand on that platform. The simulation will guide you through basic defence and offence techniques. I need you to go through all the 50 simulations to establish a baseline. I’ll create a training path for you based on the results.” X explained the process. It was natural to do an in-depth analysis before embarking on a customised training exercise. Rain went through the motions for the next 2 hours, challenging one simulation after another. X was intently studying her and taking notes. There were moments she was befuddled by what she saw and other times when she simply shook her head in frustration. She made some pertinent observations. Some things were too obvious to miss. It was very easy to connect the dots.

“What do you think? Did I mess up?” Rain asked, nearly toppling from exhaustion after the final assessment. X suddenly got up and turned off the training simulator while it was still tabulating the results for presentation. She opened up the simulator memory module and smashed it into crumbs with a full powered punch. The unit crackled and puffed before collapsing into default factory configuration. Rain was shell shocked at the outburst but reserved her remarks for later. She trusted X fully and absolutely to take decisions on her behalf. She watched X close her eyes and exhale to release the internal energy channels and return to a calmer state. She went blank for a full minute before speaking to Rain.

“I need to plan two sets of training sessions for you. One for your clumsy self and other for your transformed form. I would advise against any public appearances until you have mastered at least one set. You must never carry that weapon in your normal form or you’ll instantly blow your cover and probably lose your life as well” X stated with a deadpan face. Several dark channels were flooded with death reaper paranoia. Expert opinions had already claimed the lives of a few dark players. Nobody could accept a mercenary that was not on their payrolls. There were forces at work to take control of public opinion on game forums and flush the reaper out of hiding.

Rain had a blank look on her face. It was hard for her to come to terms with the fact that her life could be threatened if the identity of the reaper was exposed. She was already feeling the pinch from the heist.

“Can we go somewhere more private?” Rain had lost interest in training for the day. They packed up and reported the fault with the simulator on their way out of the training centre. Rain dismantled the bicycle and stuffed it inside X’s car. They drove off to a high tea club to ponder over the next steps.

“Do you like the bike?”

“Yes it’s awesome! 60km was a breeze. What’s with the cryptic message you programmed on the controller?”

“Needless to say one of the spiders was found intact in the clean up the next day. Luckily its power source was dry by the time they located it. They know someone was watching and suspect the media channel that broke the story”

“Why did you ask me to burn the spiders?”

“Destroy all evidence as soon as possible. Things have a way of crawling out of holes if you don’t take control. I’m sure they will try to find the person who planted the spiders. I am hoping no one saw you doing it”

“Are they after you as well?”

“They haven’t shown any interest in looking for me yet. They don’t know my real identity either.”

“Then why do you sound worried?”

“Law enforcement, Pinnacle Security and Green God Company are investigating this case independently. I have eyes and ears in the public channels but the other side is cold. It’s highly likely they found the other briefcase and learnt of the pilferage. That briefcase might lead them to me”

“In that case should I burn the briefcase as well?” Rain pouted at X


	80. Best Joke Ever

“Holy Cuticle! Just how many secrets are you hiding?” X almost lost control of the vehicle due to shock. She recovered quickly and sighed deeply. “Bring me the briefcase. I’ll shred it myself”

“Let’s go and do it now. We can have spider soup for tea” Rain giggled. The cousins had to lay low and attract as little attention towards themselves, both in the game and in real life. Their lives depended on it. There were too many shadows sniffing and snooping for clues. They changed course towards Rain’s place and got down to business. The spiders were baked in the oven. X set up an electric arc to sanitise the controllers, roasting the circuitry in the process. She bashed them to powder with her bare hands and separated the metal and electronic components. The electronics were baked again and smashed into pulp. The residual waste would be fed to various recycle bins around town. The recordings and the capture software were cleanly removed from her phone and workstation. Memory and storage plates were wiped clean. All evidence and recordings from that night were systematically erased and disposed of.

“These bottles are numbered. Can they track them?” Rain pointed at the stack of 700 life potions on the floor.

“I doubt they put so much thought into such things. All these bottles have the same serial number. They probably came from the same batch” X replied. She didn’t want to discuss this topic anymore. She sank into the cushions and closed her eyes. She had a lot of questions about the death reaper but it felt awkward. Rain could sense the confusion in her head.

“Do you like the spear I got you?”

“It’s awesome! Won’t be an exaggeration to say that it seduces me every time I look at it. Sadly I cannot equip it yet. My luck in the game is really awful. I just keep facing one screw up after another. It’s depressing!”

“How bad can it be?”

“I am level 130 now and I still haven’t found a suitable legacy to inherit. My bloodline restricts my choices. I am unable to class change into any legacy suited for humans nor can I change into a race that intrinsically lacks berserk capability. My only option is to change into a monster race. Can you believe that I was forced to challenge all my tier trials in God mode?” X whined. Six months ago their dark adventurer team raided the bleeding ruins in the dark rift and suffered a team wipe. X barely managed to escape with her life, but not before pinching the pulsating bleeding stone from the altar.

She hoped she would gain immense power after consuming the bloodline stone. She however was disappointed to find that she had been reset to tier 0 level 0 immediately afterwards. The bloodline carried an evil curse. She was severely weakened for 7 days. She needed twice the experience to level up and could only challenge tier trials in God mode. She persevered and was able to challenge her tier 1 trial in the third week. Her wildest dreams had come true after the first tier up. The bloodline transformed. She gained a powerful berserk capability and earned twice the attributes of normal players every level up.

The bloodline transformed again after second tier up and unlocked two more bloodline skills. She gained thrice the attributes per level. She managed to reach Tier 3 last week, on her third attempt, and upgraded all her bloodline skills. She was probably the only player in the game with an over-tier bloodline berserk skill and a bloodline domain skill. She could match a high mythic in strength and could hold out on her own against a group of Tier 4 players.

“You could become a Demon?” Rain was awestruck by her musings. Her bloodline had to be mind-bogglingly powerful to be cursed by Gods.

“Hahaha. It was Lord of Destruction who cursed this bloodline. Seems even he was scared of its power. Demons and I are mortal enemies” X clarified

“What about your situation with Miracle?” Rain asked. X started laughing like a maniac at the question. It felt like an extremely cruel joke.

“Early this week we finally relocated from Snowy Mountains to Silver Pine Kingdom. Now some idiot opened a rift to the abyss not very far away from our secret base” X continued laughing like a maniac. 

“I warned that idiot but he did it anyway. What a loser” Rain whined

“What? You were that black cloak who cut through the barrier? You are from Zero Wing?” X was laughing so hard by now that she was banging her hands and feet on the couch. “The death reaper is from Zero Wing! Best joke ever!” she laughed hysterically. She fell off the couch but continued to roll on the floor. She choked and coughed but still carried on laughing like a maniac. “Girl you really know how to put on a show. I wonder how many people will kill themselves when they learn of this. They want to buy your favour to eliminate Black Flame!” The laughter continued for another 5 minutes before X managed to calm herself down. Rain was blushing throughout. She felt embarrassed by the number of secrets she kept buried. This was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Ok stop laughing already. You are making me embarrassed”

“Alright. Alright. Anything you can do to help?” X asked.

“You can become a demon player but no demon will help you to change your race?”

“That’s correct. They are scared. Nobody wants to earn the Lord’s wrath” X sighed. It was Rain’s turn to laugh like a maniac. She was aware of the cruel joke Demon God Atlock had played on her guild leader. It was time to payback with interest. X watched her with confusion and bewilderment.

“Would you like to challenge the Demon God’s legacy? You’ll automatically become a demon if you succeed” Rain was having trouble speaking coherently. She burst into fits of laughter every few words. X had her hands on her head, slowly letting the gravity of those words sink into her. The prospect of the death reaper procuring Demon God’s legacy after stealing from him was ridiculous. Her race change into a demon would be a slap on the face of Demon God Atlock. Rain was an evil genius! X wasn’t scared of punching above her weight either. She had killed enough demons and demon players to irk the Demon Gods and she wouldn’t stop until she redeemed her curse.

“I would love to. I hope I can equip the spear before I do though. That Demon God will rain hell over me” X had a determined look on her face

“Why don’t you join our raid later? We are sorely lacking melee support. I’ll help you gear up a bit. Maybe you can equip the spear straightaway” Rain asked.

“Sounds good. What are you raiding? Who else is in your team?”

“Star-Crossed Fortress! The other two ladies who destroyed that city are joining the raid!” Rain smiled at the shocked expression on X’s face. Zero Wing was crazier than she imagined. It was true that they had monster players but there were just players. Going against a fortress teeming with mythic, high mythic and superior mythic monsters was beyond insane. They were playing God.

“You guys have a death wish? You want to attack the only fortress in Star Valley that sports a defensive barrier? You won’t even last a minute if you attack that fortress. I have heard that the guardian boss is a superior mythic Blood Mirage Beast. It can shape shift into anybody or anything”

“Don’t worry. We are not taking over the fortress. We are only creating a distraction to allow me to sneak in and complete my quest” Rain explained

“You going in alone?”

“Yes! It’s my quest and it’s easier that way. We keep the big guys distracted, grind some EXP and get the job done. No worries I am good at unleashing chaos!”

“That you are. I will need three hours to get there”

“No worries. Find a secluded spot and send me the coordinates. We’ll open a portal for you. Shall we go have dinner now?” They left to drop the packages throughout the recycling points in the city before grabbing dinner. Rain assembled the bike and cycled home. She spent some time doing her stuff before logging back into the game.

. . . .


	81. Legendary Equipment Galore

Rain was greeted by a commotion that broke outside the Lord’s Mansion. Wu Lan was holding Violet’s hands and trying to pull her away from a cloaked person. She whispered something into her ears to bring her attention towards a phoney in the room. Violet was laughing away at her prodding and the cloaked gentleman looked embarrassed.

“Guild Leader. You are back!” Rain exclaimed.

“Careful! He is not who he looks. He seems powerful and dangerous” Wu Lan cautioned her. Rain understood what was going on and burst into laughter. She pulled Wu Lan away and explained to her the situation in the guild. She brought her back to the hall to formally introduce each other. Black Flame however beat them to it.

“Your Highness! I apologise for not recognising you earlier. Please accept my humble gratitude for keeping everyone safe”. Black Flame activated “Omniscient Eyes” and saw through Wu Lan’s illusion. He knew she was Rain’s personal guard and Duchess of Orient. Everybody believed they addressed her as such due to her childish and princess-like behaviour. The sincerity of Black Flame’s voice had laid all those rumours to rest. The lack of a six wing emblem on her cloak had confused everybody in the fortress.

“I apologise too Guild Leader Black Flame. I am happy to finally make your acquaintance. I have heard a lot about your exploits” Wu Lan’s reply stunned everybody in the hall. This lady was a human royalty and not a member of Zero Wing? Was she the hidden hand behind Zero Wing all along? Black Flame led everybody into the secured meeting room for a private discussion.

“Are you here to scold us for infuriating Mythology?” Violet asked.

“I am glad you taught them a lesson. I am here to reward you guys. Both of you for your services in the eastern and western continents. Violet you have demonstrated unparalleled strength and leadership in your role in the western continent. I am promoting you to the post of Vice Guild Leader of Zero Wing. You’ll be receiving 5% shares of the guild in a few days.” Black Flame paused to comfort Violet who was tearing.

“Thank you guild leader. I promise you I’ll work harder than before to. . . ” Violet was too overwhelmed to speak further. The way Rain and Wu Lan were clapping and cheering made her flush.

“Rain! I am speechless!” Black Flame shook his head before proceeding “Your strength, resourcefulness, wits and cunning has brought considerable gains to the guild in the eastern continent. How does a 10% profit sharing in the guild and 20% profit sharing in Candlelight Trading sound to you? I wanted to do more but I know you prefer to stay hidden and carefree” Black Flame spoke with sincerity.

“Thank you Guild Leader. That’s a lot more than I could expect. I am honoured” Rain replied. She wondered if Snow was behind this.

“That settles things here. You guys have anything to report?” They appraised him about the situation with Auerbeck and the looming threat on his life despite his evolution into a humanised Tier 5 adult dragon. There were hardly any powers who would willingly threaten an adult dragon other than a coven of blood thirsty witches who saw him as a means to their salvation. His evolution had thrown a spanner in their works and delayed their plans.

“Guild Leader I am worried about reports of Mythology engaging the Death Reaper to harm you” Violet reported. Wu Lan giggled at those words. Rain elbowed her to shut up.

“Don’t worry about it. I have lost count of people trying to harm me. We’ll deal with them when they show up” he tried to calm Violet’s apprehensions. Rain nodded in approval to reassure her as well.

“Guild leader. I need your help with something. Lot of people in the game and outside are fishing for my identity. A few dark players have been murdered so far. Do you have a way to obfuscate my equipment?” Rain asked.

“I do but it’s a guild secret, since you yourself are a guild secret I don’t mind sharing it with you” Black Flame chuckled. Rain nudged Wu Lan to leave them for a while. The reaper’s scythe was modelled into a hook using the “demon mask”. The misbalanced spear was modelled into a wooden staff. Violet’s jaws were wide open throughout, watching the reaper’s trademark weapons being remodelled. The glow effect was further adjusted to make them look like epic weapons.

“It’s done. However, you need to exercise caution. A powerful observation skill can see through them” Black Flame cautioned Rain. The upgraded mask could obfuscate Tier 4 observation skills. Higher skills were fair game. Rain thanked him before collecting the weapons.

“She is the death reaper!” Violet was frozen with amazement. She finally understood why Rain was being so opulently rewarded. She shuddered when the deeper meaning of this expose hit her.

“Yes. I am letting you know only because I was sure that you won’t rest until you uncovered her identity. Her reaper identity and real world identity are guild secrets. We have to be very cautious about mentioning her in-game identity as well” Black Flame clarified. His words reassured Rain. Violet nodded and presented her ring and bracers for obfuscation. Black Flame was amazed at the legendary equipment galore.

“Do you have the time to join our raid on Star-Crossed Fortress later?” Rain asked. The question stunned Black Flame. He was having trouble wrapping his head around it. Raiding this medium fortress was even more difficult than capturing a large fortress. Nobody dared to venture near 2000 yards of this fortress in his past life. One super guild had lost millions of troops including 5 Tier 6 players within minutes of attacking the fortress. He took a few moments to compose himself.

“You do realise it’s a death trap right? It’s the only fortress with a defensive barrier and it’s not just for show. You’ll need a peak Tier 6 large scale destruction spell to take it out. They are not going to give you the time to cast one either”

“I’ll figure something out. I just need to find a way to get inside undetected” Rain’s calm and confident reply was all he needed to hear.

“Sure. We go there after visiting the abyssal rift. I want to take control of a NPC city and claim the slots for ‘Shadow Stalker’ and ‘Soul Whisperer’ legacies for Assassins and Summoners. Rest of the main force and dark god legion members will be joining us in the next 24 hours.” Those words shook Rain a bit. She wanted the faux saints to monopolize the battlefield. Their insane soul levels would help them overwhelm the monsters in the area.

“The Kingdom’s forces have barricaded the entire area. Nobody is allowed to enter until the crusades start officially” Violet interjected.

“The rift is connected to the well of souls from the abyss. Nobody would last within 3000 yards of the rift without soul protection. The distance would grow as the monsters occupy the area and extend the rift. That kingdom is doomed” Rain shared her assessment.

“I feared that as well. I plan to lure these monsters out of their coverage area and ensnare them. That’s why I came here to look for a secret hideout in the area. It has to be defendable and a suitable distance away from the rift for my plan to work”

“I know someone who can help. They have a secret hideout near the rift. I am not sure if she would cooperate since it’s her home base we are talking about. They are a dark adventurer team and will definitely be sandwiched between the kingdom’s forces and the soul eaters. She should be agreeable if we offer to evacuate them somewhere safe. However, she has a short fuse. Please don’t infuriate her at any cost” Rain offered to help.

“Can she be trusted?”

“I trust her with my life. She knows everything about me” That declaration shook everybody in the room.

“In that case we should seek an alliance with them. I hope their base fits the bill” Black Flame and Violet were curious about the identity of this powerful lady.

“I need to find some equipment for her. I’ll arrange for a meet up soon”

“Oh! I almost forgot. Here are the sets you ordered” Black Flame took out piece after piece and placed them on the table.

“Guild Leader. May I suggest you use them to bargain with her if her base suits our requirements? I will ask her to meet us now.” Rain suggested before sending a message to X. She received a confirmation and a set of coordinates. The meeting was scheduled within the next 10 minutes. They neatly arranged the stacks of equipment. The epic set was kept hidden from view. Wu Lan opened a portal to the location. A petite woman in a black cloak walked out of the portal.

“Demon God Xenelia!” Black Flame mumbled under his breath in astonishment.


	82. Method, Madness and Magic

“You guys know each other?” Violet asked him innocently. The shock and horror on his face didn’t escape her notice. Black Flame simply shook his head in denial. It was difficult for him to accept that he was in the same room with one of the top 5 players on Secret Pavilion’s Dark Player Rankings in his previous life. Tier 6 players shuddered in her presence. Not just super guilds, even Empires and Kingdoms of western continent had bounties on her head. Players voted her for the title of ‘Face of Death’, the last face anyone saw before they died. The red tinge in her name was so dark that it almost looked charcoal black. The dark cloak failed to conceal the aura of death and gore around her.

“Greetings! Guild Leader Black Flame. Glad to make your acquaintance. I heard you have some business with me?” Xenelia asked with a surreal smile on her face. She was looking at the player with multiple humongous bounties on his head and she found it ironic.

“Commander Xenelia I am sure you are preparing for the abyssal invasion. We would like to join forces with your team to defend your base”

“You jest Guild Leader Black Flame. We only have a 10% chance of survival. You don’t have to extend us any favours due to our common friend here. Every single one of my Blood Raider Adventurer Team is a cutthroat fighter. We will take as many down with us before we die. That is the path we chose”

“Could you share how big your adventurer team is?”

“We have over 1000 members, over 100 are Tier 4”

“Would you accept our offer if we can raise your survival rate to 50%?” Black Flame’s calm words made Xenelia pause and ponder. She was boasting about a survival rate of 10%. It was most likely 2% at best.

“And what do you need from us in return?” The offer was too good to be true. It was obvious she would have to pay dearly to avail such a service.

“In the short term we need a defendable base to operate from and in the long run we would like to tap into your information network. Obviously we’ll compensate you for your services”. Those words struck Xenelia like lightning. The dark adventurer team was just a face. Their real business was espionage and subterfuge. The value of any information network lay in its secrecy. How deep was this guy to know something so crucial and secretive about her operations? He just wanted to curry favour them at a critical juncture to profiteer in the long run.

“What makes you so confident about your claim?” Xenelia had to make sure that this guy was worth the trouble. She knew Zero Wing was unfathomably deep. Intelligence reports on this guild usually had a 12 hour expiry timeline.

“We are the only guild in the western continent with experience in fighting abyssal monsters. We know their combat style, methods, strengths and weaknesses like none other. Method, Madness and Magic! I am sure you read the report about us”

“I wrote that report. I didn’t realise it’s going to boomerang on me like this” Xenelia had a grin on her face. “I am unable to divulge the location of our base. Some secrets are worth dying for” She spoke with conviction, looking squarely into his eyes.

“In that case we would like to prick your expertise to identify a place that is 9,000 to 12,000 yards away from the rift and can be defended using the terrain or with makeshift structures or both?” It was obvious that Xenelia had thoroughly vetted the area before identifying a secret location for her base.

“Guild Leader Black Flame. I am sure you are aware that our services aren’t exactly cheap” Xenelia rolled her eyes. It was the first time someone drilled such a hard bargain with Black Flame. He was mightily impressed with her negotiation skills. She stood firm on her ground despite her absolute disadvantage. Time was of essence and he needed to find a suitable location before the rest of the forces assembled. Xenelia’s recommendation would definitely save him a lot of trouble and he won’t have to expose too many guild secrets either.

“Is this epic set equipment sufficient?” Black Flame disclosed the hidden set. He could sense Xenelia’s eyes glow with excitement. “You can get this set if your recommendation serves us well. Otherwise we’ll offer one of these level 140 dark-gold sets for your services” he explained. Rain had already informed him that she wished to gift a set to her so getting her to earn it was profitable enough.

“Guild Leader Black Flame. You really know how to drown someone with favours. Either of these sets is worth a lot more than my recommendation. Let this effort be a gift from us to your guild since it doesn’t cost us anything. There are a couple of sites I would like to recommend. One of them was our first choice for a base but it was too close to the royal trade route proposed by Mythology”

“I accept. Please lead the way”. All of them teleported near the entrance of the hideout. Rain summoned the void shadow hawk. They flew over the rocky terrain. They examined a spire containing an abandoned demon nest that was nestled within a rocky labyrinth. It was secretive and defendable, a perfect spot for a hideout. The structure could effectively trap and kill people and monsters. Black Flame was doing some serious introspection when a high pitched voice interrupted his thought process.

“Why would the demons abandon such a secure facility?” Wu Lan asked innocently.

“I wonder as well. This place is too perfect to be perfect. I am sure it’s hiding some sinister secrets. Such a place should be bustling with life, yet we didn’t come across a single monster so far” Rain’s assessment was difficult to ignore.

“I agree. Something about this place doesn’t seem right. The rock formation isn’t natural. It doesn’t match the surrounding terrain. Some major power gathered those rocks and constructed a labyrinth. This place definitely holds some dark secrets” Black Flame concurred.

“We encountered a level 140 two-headed demonic wolf on our last trip. It was severely wounded and we had no trouble putting it down. It felt like it was begging us to put it out of its misery. Your assessment makes sense to me now. Let’s get out of here” Xenelia stated. She pointed towards another location to the east of the rift. The hawk flew through a portal to arrive at a rugged plot of neutral territory that was nestled between a level 140 area, and level 150 and 160 forbidden zones. Black Flame was thrilled to learn about the existence of such a prime piece of land. The elevation and serrated slopes provided a natural barrier against attacks. Zero Wing’s enemies would have a tough time attacking this place since any huge gathering of players in the surrounding areas would attract raids from forbidden zones.

“This area will be heavily sought after for many years after players become Tier 4 and 5. I wish I could construct a city and transfer my knight’s division here.” Black Flame couldn’t hide his pleasure.

“Guild Leader Black Flame. Please do not get too greedy. I hope you will allow our adventurer team to garrison here and develop as well” Xenelia quipped. She had no intention of bringing them to this goldmine. The area was large enough to accommodate a city and she wanted this prime real estate for herself. The fiasco of her last recommendation was a slap on her professional reputation. She needed to redeem herself and this was her safest bet. A friendly and insane guild like Zero Wing could unlock this area for her team much earlier than anticipated.

“Commander Xenelia, I will be happy to partner with your adventurer team. We are always on the lookout for trustworthy friends. I hope you reconsider your decision about defending your base by yourselves. This location can boost our survival rate by 60%”

“Our home base will certainly fall if we abandon it” Xenelia expressed her concerns.

“Commander Xenelia, these monsters are unlike the abyssal monsters from Twin-Towers kingdom, in the eastern continent. They are primeval monsters with basal characteristics, driven solely by hunger and herd instinct. They have no interest in owning territory. They conquer territory only to expand the well of souls that powers their hive. They can sense soul signatures up to 4000 yards away. 1000 souls cooped up in your base would attract them like a magnet. Your best bet to save your base is to abandon it” Black Flame explained the situation.

“And the same won’t hold true here?” Xenelia rolled her eyes. It was easier to migrate somewhere else than fight it out.

“That’s correct. Because here they will be facing a force of 2000 Tier 4 players from Zero Wing and at least 3000 Tier 4 NPC personal guards, and hundreds of enhanced war weapons. Are you confident now?”


	83. The City of Dreams

Xenelia’s jaws dropped at the revelation. None of the super-guilds in the western continent could boast of a number that big. Her proud declaration of 100 Tier 4 players felt like a joke in comparison.

Rain sought Black Flame out and requested for a private meeting. She wanted to have a clear understanding of how deeply the guild was invested in developing in the Kingdom. The rift was here to stay. Any structure they built would constantly attract the attention of the abyssal monsters.

“Guild Leader. I reckon the soul eaters will take four days to cover 12,000 yards. Is there a way to boost the survival rate further?” Rain asked.

“I am counting on that time to set up strategic defensive structures and mount war weapons on them. It will be difficult to raise our survivability without something sturdier” Black Flame replied. 

“Will this city token help?” Rain handed him the city token for Southern Ridges City. His eyes lit up upon receiving the pear shaped crystal.

“I wasn’t planning on setting up a guild city in the western continent mainland so soon. This location however is too tempting to ignore. We have magic arrays to keep the abyssal monsters away. The real threat is from the raiding parties of the forbidden zone. They will hit us the moment the three day protection period is over” Black Flame explained his dilemma. “We need a highly capable multi-racial force like the knight’s division and sturdy defensive structures before we could consider setting up a city. We may not have sufficient reputation to avail the Kingdom’s services to construct one either”

“What does it take to set up the knight’s division?”

“Only a Lord can commission one. I have already used my quota for Stone Forest City”

“I am a Lord too” Rain flashed her eye-brows, surprising him yet again.

“That wonderful! Commissioning a knight’s division can take anything from 7 to 30 days. Rank and status of the commissioner plays an important part in the recruitment exercise.”

“Cool! We head to a nearby Adventurer Association later. Do you think these towers would be sufficient to safeguard the city?” Rain flashed two sets of designs. Black Flame’s jaws dropped at the sight of legendary ranked ‘Tower of Supreme Elements’ and ‘Tower of Sin’ designs. The second tower was an amazing support structure that boosted the offensive and defensive capabilities of all structures and siege weapons within 2500 yards, and doubled up as a mana and buffing tower for the defenders.

“I have some more architectural designs to develop the city later” Rain offered designs for a Casino, Grand Alchemy Workshop, Black Market, Floating Inn and a Swan Lake. Black Flame was shivering at the abundance. Constructing the city of dreams could bankrupt the guild. Each defence tower required 200 seven luminary crystals and 250 stacks of legendary materials for the element they represented along with other rare materials. Each ‘Tower of Sin’ required 1000 attributed gemstones for various elements, 1000 mana-stones and 50,000 magic cores. He could build four such towers before draining his entire stockpile. The two peak constructions, one advanced and one basic construction and the unranked mana lake would definitely squeeze him dry. Including the mammoth cost of commissioning the Knight’s division would make it the biggest investment he made in the game so far. It was all worth it.

“Let’s regroup with the rest and head to the nearest city”

. . . . .

Five cloaked players entered the teleportation hall of Pine Grove City and took a carriage towards the Adventurer’s Association building at the city centre. Nobody noticed anything unusual about the group. The news of abyssal invasion was consistently attracting swarms of powerful adventurers. The city was closest to the invasion site, despite being 500,000 yards away from the rift. Many tier 4 players came here to grind for glory and merit points. Long queues had formed outside the adventurer association with players lining to sign-up for various quests. The small group of five players ignored the angry stares from others in the queue and continued walking towards the entrance.

“Are you people blind? Can’t you see the queue?”

“Let them go brother. I am sure that the guard captain will feed this group of jerks to his pet dragon. Let’s enjoy the show!” They were referring to the mammoth superior mythic earth dragon caged outside the entrance of the building. The guard captain had little patience to waste on players who thought of themselves as a cut above the rest. Even 4-star adventurers were told to queue up patiently.

“Yeah! Finally some entertainment after a long wait”. The dragon became restless the moment this group arrived within 500 yards of the entrance. It was triggered by Xenelia’s presence. It raged in a fit of madness and broke free of its bindings. It ran towards the group of five players, crossing 500 yards in a jiffy and launched its mammoth claws towards them. The NPC guards were shell shocked at the ferocious dragon that hadn’t given them any opportunity to control it. Nobody in the crowd could react to the sudden charge.

A pitch black sword coated with a thick layer of mystical goo rose to welcome the claw swipe. Everybody in the queue watched with bated breaths, hoping for another bloody massacre to unfold before their eyes. They however were sorely disappointed when the dragon retracted its claw and cancelled its charge, screeching to a stop yards away from the group. A cloaked figure stood atop its neck, holding one hand on the dragon’s head and caressing under its ear with another.

“You guys want a ride?” Rain chirped. Being a ‘Monster’s Best Friend’ had its perks! Wu Lan ran and hopped onto the dragon’s back while the rest watched in horror.

“Is there anything you cannot do?” Violet followed. Black Flame and Xenelia shook their heads in disgust at their childish behaviour and continued to walk towards the entrance.

“What just happened?”

“I have no clue. It went from a raging dragon to a cute puppy at the speed of light”

“Who are these nut sacks? They think it’s a game to ride the guard captain’s pet. He’s going to skin them alive”. Players were further stunned when the guard captain bowed before the new arrivals instead of flaying them.

“Lord Adventurer, I apologise for my pet dragon’s behaviour. Thank you for sparing its life” Guard captain’s apology silenced everybody in the crowd. There was a player capable of slaying a superior mythic amongst them and they were curious about her identity.

“No worries. He is such a good boy” Wu Lan chirped.

“Your Highness! Welcome to Pine Grove City. You guys must be exhausted after your long trip. Please allow me to escort you inside”. Even Black Flame and Xenelia were surprised by the royal treatment accosted to Rain and Wu Lan. Violet was just happy not to be in trouble. They made their way up to the third floor private room that was usually reserved for royals.

. . . .

“Hmm. The wine here is nicer. I should ask them to pack a few stacks for us later” Wu Lan remarked, breaking the silence in the room. Rain rolled her eyes while Violet giggled at her words. Emergency protocols had been activated throughout the kingdom. They knew how serious the threat from the abyss was. They were waiting for the King's approval on committing the kingdom's resources on a neutral territory. The King’s security attaché was particularly impressed by Rain. Her drafting exercise for Knight’s Division had been notified across multiple kingdoms and empires in the western continent. The NPC was convinced that her 7-star status would impress upon powerful entities and their convergence in the area would aid the kingdom. Some of the capable prisoners and those banished from the kingdom were also given a chance to redeem themselves by signing up. Serving a neutral Lord in a neutral territory was a powerful motivation for the King’s detractors as well.

The group was surprised when the royal architect and the captain of the king’s guard joined them.

“The council has considered your proposal. Since the city would be the closest outpost to the abyssal rift, the Kingdom requires a permanent commission of five battalions to be garrisoned within it. While the control of the city will be firmly within your hands, the Kingdom will have complete autonomy over the sections housing the forces. We will definitely assist you in defending the city against any threats you encounter. We require your guild or alliance to station at least 500,000 capable defenders at all times, in addition to the Knight’s Division you wish to draft. We also need to review the defensive structures you plan to build. We will build our own structures and bill you for the same if we aren’t satisfied with the designs provided. Do you accept our terms?” the knight captain demanded.


	84. Who's Whose Bunny

Black Flame pondered over the terms and found them to be mostly acceptable. Such arrangements were fairly common within the NPC cities of western continent. The only difference was that the role of the Kingdom and the guild were reversed in this scenario.

“We have no issues accepting your conditions as long as the Kingdom’s troops do not occupy prime lands and agree to upkeep the structures they commission. I am sure the high council has considered the fact that most of the adventurers involved in the crusades will operate from this city. We hope to have sufficient space to accommodate them and our partner guilds in the city as well” Black Flame demanded. The proposal was too good to be ignored but he had to ensure that the Kingdom doesn’t rob him in the process.

“We don’t have any preference over location. We just want a plot of land big enough to garrison the battalions. The Kingdom’s army will upkeep our portion at no cost to you” the captain responded.

“Could we have a look at the available city plans?” Black Flame demanded. There was a deep sigh of despair at the other end of the table. The royal architect shook his head and cleared his throat before joining the conversation.

“The site is unsuitable for construction of a city. Its location on a mountain top severely limits our planning designs. The primal rock it sits upon will take months to blast away. Even if we manage to do that we will have to spend a lot more time and materials to seal the craters and flatten the base to support various structures. We could however build a medium fortress upon it. The costs will be astronomical. It might take up to 45 days to complete. That place will be sprawling with abyssal monsters even before we can complete the base. This project is ridiculous” the architect sighed in dejection. A pall of gloom descended upon the private meeting room. Black Flame had run into a similar problem with Zero Wing City. That mountain however could be blasted away easily and they took 10 days’ time to complete the basic city construction.

“Famed Architect Klinsman, would this design address your concerns?” Rain revealed a tattered parchment and placed it before the royal architect.

“Holy Bards of Stormhold! Where did you find this masterpiece?” the elderly gentleman couldn’t keep his emotions at bay. He was looking at a copy of the blueprint of the city of Kamchatkhor. A city nestled among the clouds, built by Gods and Titans on the mountains of Slamrock. The greatest city ever known to exist before it was blasted into smithereens by an experiment that birthed the element of Ruin. The royal architect calmed himself before placing the parchment back on the table.

“This plan isn’t suitable for the site we have, but the principles behind its construction can be used to draft a city plan that fits the bill. I would like to borrow this plan for a while to study some aspects in detail” the architect stated.

“Famed Architect Klinsman, will it be possible to include some of the constructions we plan to build in the master plan. I can pass you the designs and specifications to assist in the planning process” Black Flame stated.

“That would be wonderful” the usually grumpy old man was in an amazingly good mood.

“Lord Captain, these are the defensive towers and support towers that we wish to build around the city centre. Will it be possible for you to build them on our behalf and bill us accordingly?” Black Flame retrieved the tower designs and placed them on the table. Rain jumped at the opportunity to request for a better deal.

“Lord Captain, I am sure that the council is aware that the presence of a highly populated city would attract the attention of the abyssal monsters away from the Kingdom. This city’s survival is necessary for the Kingdom to survive this threat. While I am confident that the designs we provide will be to your liking, I hope you’ll reinforce the city’s defences with the structures you spoke of without any costs to us.” Rain stated with a stoic face. It was their city and there was no reason for them to be used as guinea pigs for slaughter. The knight captain had a shocked look on his face while the security attaché looked at her with reverence. While the conclusion seemed logical, it almost felt prophetic to the two NPCs.

“Holy Swans of Cumberlake! Is that what I think it is? The mystical Tower of Sin! Never in my wildest dreams have I imagined to construct one of them with my own hands. No way! Tower of Supreme Elements! I must be really blessed to live up to this day” Klinsman’s awestruck musings at the designs shredded the arguments the knight captain wished to present to get out of a difficult negotiation. He rested his case.

“Lord Adventurer. You make a valid point. The Kingdom will reinforce the city at our own cost. We’ll also cover 50% of the costs for four defence towers and six support towers you wish to construct” he yielded with a smile on his face. All architectural designs, including those from Black Flame were handed to Klinsman with a full set of specifications.

“I’d like to reserve a suitable space for War God’s Temple to garrison in the city” Rain’s declaration stunned everybody around her.

“Lord Adventurer, only a prominent representative from War God’s Temple can initiate such a recommendation. We won’t be able to act upon your request” the security attaché interjected.

“Is this prominent enough for you?” Rain swapped her title to ‘War God’s Executioner’. A silver representative was too high a rank to ignore. Everybody’s jaws dropped at the revelation. Rain’s brand value increased exponentially in the Kingdom after the declaration. The fight against the abyss could witness a speedy conclusion if War God’s Temple was involved. The three representatives from the Kingdom left the room for a quick discussion. Klinsman left to work on the city plan while the other two appraised the council on the latest dynamics.

“Rain, what are you trying to achieve?” Xenelia was enraged at the idea of having a War God’s temple in the proposed city. Dark players could never be safe in such a city.

“Nothing much. They wanted to use us as crash test dummies. Now they will become our bunnies. Trust me on this one ok?” Her explanation sent shivers down everyone present in the room. Rain’s intuition was pricking her throughout the meeting. She used an opportunity to equip the signet ring of chaos to figure out what was going on. The insights she received freaked her out. The Kingdom wanted to use them as lab rats. The council had concluded that the Kingdom needed the city as a bait to test the waters. These officials were never serious about garrisoning the city. They merely dangled a carrot to milk Zero Wing and bait them. Rain did the same by dangling her War God’s Temple identity. They were the only power who had the means to close the rift. The Kingdom would do anything in their power to get into their good books. They waited for them to finalise the deal.

Black Flame and Xenelia discussed the situation in the western continent and further cemented the friendship between them. He persuaded her to accept the epic set armour and invited her to the grand auction in White River City the next day. They further discussed the upcoming raid on Star-Crossed Fortress. Rain explained the purpose and objectives of the raid. Everybody in the room was willing to help her create a distraction, allowing her to cut through the defensive barrier and infiltrate the fortress. They were free to stay and grind the monsters or go their merry way later. Black Flame shared his experience of fighting a Mirage Beast to prepare them for the guardian boss. They didn’t realise that 30 minutes were up by the time the kingdom’s representatives returned with excited looks on their faces.


	85. Scammers of Repute

“Sir Klinsman, do you have good news for us?” The knight captain wanted to speak but Rain cut him off and took control of the conversation from the word go.

“Yes my lady. Here is a city plan for your review. I have double checked its feasibility. You have my gratitude for allowing me to learn so much from the heavenly city plan you lent me. I hope this plan will satisfy you” Klinsman laid out sheets of parchment detailing a 15 level grand city that hugged the mountain slope. Everybody in the room fell in love with the city plan and its illusory projection that looked like a giant pine cone. The dense primal rock base ensured that this design would endure the test of time.

The city was divided into three districts, outer, middle and inner. Each section had its own power source and could support its own defensive array. One tower of summoning and 12 defensive towers of various grades and ranges were contributed by the kingdom. The four towers of supreme elements lined the periphery of the inner city. These towers also doubled up as teleportation gantries with enough range to cover the entire Star Valley to the south, the entirety of Silver Pine Kingdom, and a couple of other neighbouring kingdoms to the north. It stretched all the way to the shores of the Undead Sea that separated the mainland from the frozen blight lands to the north. It could reach the border marshes of Silver Moon Empire to the west and the periphery of crooked islands, a mystical land controlled by dark forces, to the east. These islands were one of the reasons why trade between the eastern and western continents wasn’t feasible via a sea route.

The tower of summoning stood tall at the top of the mountain. It was enclosed on all sides by the City Magistrate’s Building that stood at the centre of the Swan Lake. Adventurer’s Association, War God’s Temple, Royal Retreat, and Zero Wing’s Guild Residence, Candlelight Commerce Building and some more plots for luxury shops and trading firms constituted the inner district. Outer district comprised of the Casino, Grand Alchemy Worksop, Black market, Floating Inn, Advanced Smithy, Garrison area for Kingdom’s forces and Knight’s division and several empty plots of land for shops. The middle district comprised mainly of residential areas, Alliance Hall, plots for Guild Residences, private housing, six Towers of Sin and three Frost-Flame towers with capacity to mount 30 huge cannons or 70 mid-sized long range war weapons each. Nine defence towers, containing a mix of magic breaker towers, thunder ballista towers, and dark lightning towers were lined up around the ramparts of the outer district with enough capacity to host 1500 war weapons.

Klinsman explained the construction schedule that involved construction of the ramparts for each district, defence and support towers, and garrison, training and administrative area for Kingdom’s forces and City Magistrate’s Building within the first 3 days. Adventurer’s Association, Zero Wing’s Residence, Alliance Hall and Royal Retreat would be completed on day 5. Garrison, training and administrative area for Knight’s Division and Grand Alchemy Workshop delivered on day 7. Candlelight Commerce Building, Black Market and Floating Inn on day 9. Casino and Swan Lake on day 10. They would have sufficient time to bring up the defensive structures and mount war weapons on them before the abyssal monsters reached the area. Rest of the construction would go on in parallel with the invasion.

“We’ll take care of construction of all the buildings you have entrusted us with. Do let me know when War God’s temple takes a decision to garrison here” Klinsman offered.

“I notice you have added another peak restaurant in the inner section and an Adventurer’s Association” Rain ignored the question, purposely looking pleased with the unwanted additions.

“Yes Lord Adventurer. The council felt it would do justice to the grand city you wish to commission. We’ll bear the construction costs for those buildings. We’ll also bear the construction costs for the defensive structures we plan to build and share 50% of the costs for the defensive and support structures you provided. We’ll also commission 10 battalions in the city to defend it until your drafting exercise is complete” The security attaché chimed.

“And how much is this city construction going to cost me?” Rain asked

“Famed Architect Klinsman has agreed to a nominal fee for this monumental effort. Accounting for the materials, manpower, special skills, terrain and the ridiculous timeline, the total for the entire city would come down to 6.8 million gold and 4.2 million magic crystals” the security attaché paused for a while to assess the impact of the cost. Black Flame and Rain had their poker face on while the rest gasped with surprise on the astronomical cost of construction.

“You’ll receive a flat 40% discount on the price since you command the privileges of a Grand Marquis in the Kingdom. Since you are an esteemed representative of War God’s Temple, the council has approved an additional 10% discount” The security attaché stated slowly, hoping to elicit some response. There was none. Not even a twitch or a blink.

“How confident are you of meeting the timeline?” Rain asked with a deadpan face.

“80% without any unforeseen incidents. The first 5 days are extremely critical to achieve this deadline”

“Any there any other charges?”

“There will be a 50,000 gold one-time registration fee. Management fees and taxes aren’t applicable since the location is a neutral territory. You’ll be bearing all operational and maintenance costs. You do not need to pay for the Kingdom’s forces. The council has already waived the administration fees for the drafting exercise. You’ll still have to pay the salaries and perks for the knights and any other staff you employ to manage the city. I also wish to inform you that Kingdom’s forces will be exempt from the city entrance fees. We however will pay for any services availed in the city including teleportation services” The security attaché was slightly shaky towards the end. It felt like he was speaking to a wall.

“Give us a moment to discuss this internally” Rain demanded with a stern face. The kingdom’s representatives left the room quietly, wondering if the offer wasn’t sufficient to excite Rain. She finally breathed a loud sigh of relief.

“Didn’t I tell you to trust me” she smiled back at all the smiling faces in the room. “Guild leader is it worth it?”

“I am amazed they didn’t charge us anything for garrisoning the Kingdom’s forces. 40% was worth it. 50% is a steal. The knight’s division drafting exercise is going to cost more. I hope the 50% offer stays” Black Flame replied while applauding Rain’s effort.

“Those jerks! I can’t wait to see the look on their faces when they realise they have been scammed” Wu Lan chirped.

“Most crimes are legal when you have power and status” Rain smirked. They chit chatted for a while to pass time and relax. The kingdom’s representatives were called in a while later.

“We accept your recommendations. Could we finalise the contract as soon as possible?” Rain spoke with a stern voice, oozing a tinge of dissatisfaction.

“Lord Adventurer. The Adventurers Association has waived the registration fees for the city. It will be 3.4 million gold and 2.1 million magic crystals”. The attaché handed her the contract.

“To honour the collaboration between our guild and the Kingdom we wish to change the name to “Pine Wing City”? By the way the wine was excellent! Could I get a stack of it as well” Rain finally smiled at the attaché, egging him on to walk the extra mile. The contract was modified and signed between the Knight Captain and Black Flame. The attaché wanted to walk them through the payment schemes but was rendered speechless when Rain cleared the payment instantly.

“I hope you start the construction as soon as possible. We need to be somewhere urgently so we’ll take our leave” Rain nudged Wu Lan to open a portal back to the neutral territory. The group disappeared from the room before anyone had a chance to respond.


	86. Xenelia's Transformation

“Why are we back here again?” Xenelia inquired

“Building the city was only the first step. I need to work on a lure to invite the abyssal monsters here. I’ll see you guys at the Star-Crossed Fortress in 2 hours’ time” Black Flame responded and bid goodbye to everyone. Rain held Xenelia’s hands and dragged her away.

“Can you equip the epic set?” Rain asked. Xenelia swapped into the epic set and felt her strength grow. Rain involuntarily took a step back as she felt Xenelia’s aura wash over her. This set was custom fit for Hell Rush and encrusted with strength enhancing gemstones. It took Xenelia a while to familiarise herself with the sudden burst of power rampaging through her body. She nodded to convey her agreement and gratitude.

“Awesome! Can you equip the spear now?” Rain whispered. The epic set reduced item level requirements by 15 levels. Xenelia could finally equip the level 140 spear despite being 10 levels short. She had been at a loss of words, trying to describe the fatal attraction she felt towards the spear since she laid her eyes on it. The faint murmurs and hauntings she felt in her head aroused her beyond her wildest dreams. She visited a dark shaman and paid him 5000 gold to cast tier 4 ‘dark obfuscation’ to fake its description and reduce its glow effects to dark-gold level. Surprisingly, none of her adventurer team members felt anything out of ordinary when they tried it.

She was a little scared when she thought about equipping the spear. The murmurs in her head had grown louder than whispers the moment she looked at it. The rumblings assaulted her mind, seducing her to go all the way and hold the weapon. She could sense the spear quiver with excitement when she softly caressed its shaft. She steeled herself and grabbed it with all her strength. An electric current zipped through her body the moment she equipped the spear. Her bloodline activated and sent forth faint tremors that made her convulse. Arcs of silver lightning burst out of her body, colouring her hair white. A thin greyish circular band appeared around her pupils. An abyss imprint appeared on her forehead and dissolved into thick plumes of demonic energy moments later. Her transformation was complete after a few minutes.

Xenelia felt at ease after the strange sensations assaulting her body subsided. She calmed her breathing before assessing the changes in her body. She had absorbed the core of her spear and merged with it. She could equip and unequip it on a whim, without accessing her bag space. She unlocked another bloodline ability that allowed her to view 1000 yards around her in graphic detail, irrespective of the environment. She was ecstatic beyond her wildest dreams.

“I am so happy. This weapon resonates with my bloodline. I feel like I can challenge a dragon right now. My vision is so clear that I can see through the trees. Thank you so much. This weapon was made for me” Xenelia was over the moon. She jumped in joy before thrusting forward to perform a horizontal swipe at the empty space in front of her. The spear manifested in her hands right before the swiping action. Rain was amazed to see 10 rows of trees split cleanly into two over 100 yards away.

“That’s amazing! Is your bloodline related to Abyss?”

“How did you know? It came from Abyss’s Bloodstone. Oh this spear is Abyss’s Stinger! I see the connection. So there are other items I need to find to unlock more abilities?” Xenelia was stunned at the realisation.

“You might be in luck. Try this potion. I have no idea what it does” Rain passed her a bottle of “Abyss’s Skin”. Xenelia could sense her bloodline swirl inside, begging her to consume the potion. She salivated when she held the bottle in her hands.

“Move 50 yards away from me” She cautioned Rain before consuming the potion. Rain obliged by blinking away. Xenelia stood frozen on the ground, covered in a thick layer of salt. Thick white fumes emerged from the ground and engulfed her entire body. Silvery lightning burst forth from her body, causing the salty layer to crackle and vibrate. The flames and the salty crust turned transparent 15 seconds later. They changed colour every five seconds before turning pitch black. The ashen black exterior was sucked into her body through the mouth 60 seconds later. Multiple runes manifested around her and blinked in unison. They seared her skin, leaving tattoo marks all over her body. The tattoos exploded into mist a while later, wiping clean a part of her body from existence. Ash was all that remained at the spot she stood a while ago. Rain panicked when she couldn’t locate any trace of Xenelia. There was no life force, mana or soul signature. She had literally disappeared into thin air. She felt tips of her hair stand a while later and turned towards that direction.

“Damn! You found me!” A voice from 10 yards away made her smile again.

“No. I sensed your presence. I can’t see you. I can’t locate your life force, mana or soul signature either. What did you transform into?” Rain was clueless.

“It’s called spectral form” Wu Lan spoke while running towards them. She was curious about Xenelia’s transformation as well. “It’s a forbidden skill in our homeland. When I was a kid I nearly got skinned alive for learning it”

“Nobody is going to skin you here girl. Rise and shine” Xenelia cheered. Wu Lan grew wings like a butterfly that shone in seven different colours before she became transparent. Her life force, mana and soul signature completely disappeared.

“That is so cool! Can you teach me as well?” Violet came running. A lamp shaped tattoo was blinking on her forehead, allowing her to detect spectral forms.

“Not fair! I am the only one who cannot see you all” Rain whined. A mana thread shot off from Wu Lan and connected with her. She gained spectral vision. She could see two angelic phantoms hovering around her. “Why would something so awesome be forbidden?”

“You gain spectral form by sacrificing all fire resistance. You can catch fire very easily. That can be fatal in my homeland” Wu Lan replied.

“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be careful around fire in this form” Xenelia spoke in a cheerful voice. They played around for a while. Rain was jealous when Violet picked up the skill rather quickly. She didn’t know that a fully unlocked epic mana body was a prerequisite for learning this skill. Xenelia developed an elemental suit of armour and gained natural flight ability after consuming the potion. Rain transferred the “Demon God’s Legacy Stone” to her and sent her off to her base.

“So we wait now?” Rain asked.

“Yes. Guild leader is a bit like you. He always runs away on his own” Violet giggled.

“Why not summon some dragons for the fight later?” Wu Lan asked. Rain had nothing better to do so she summoned two dragons and sent them on a hunting expedition. Wu Lan thought them another disappearing trick using spatial manipulation. Violet taught them a basic movement technique “Space Walk”. Rain combined both techniques to create her first advanced combat technique “Space Hop”. Wu Lan used a strengthening technique to increase the hop distance.

Rain summoned another pair of dragons 55 minutes later and sent them to explore the level 150 forbidden area. They practised various combat techniques and discussed how to learn super spells. Violet shared with them some of her experiments with bloodline manipulation. Rain made a mental note to upgrade her elemental bloodline using the toolbox at a later stage. With the two hours’ time almost up, they decided to continue the discussion later. Rain summoned another pair of dragons. The other four dragons were recalled. They opened a portal to a hilltop 2000 yards away from Star-Crossed Fortress. Rain split into ‘Nether Crow Form’ for an aerial examination of the fortress. She returned five minutes later with a disappointed look on her face.

“Multiple issues. Firstly, the guardian can sense me. I can’t infiltrate the fortress without getting him out of there. Secondly, the witch is locked inside a high security prison. I can get in but I cannot get her out without destroying the prison’s magic arrays. Thirdly, I can’t destroy the magic arrays in my current form. Fourthly, the magic arrays are linked to a god level magical trap. Destroying them will kill everyone inside the prison. It’s an impossible task!” Rain mused.


	87. Star-Crossed Fortress

Violet and Wu Lan tried to comfort Rain in their own ways. They discussed ways of bypassing the magic arrays but nothing seemed to click. Rain’s only options were to choose between failure or failure and death.

“Describe the magic array” A female voice whispered from above. Everybody was startled at the presence. None of them noticed that the tree they stood under was a sentient creature. Even the dragons couldn’t detect her presence. Rain trusted her instincts and described shape, size, layering and elemental composition of the array.

“It seems you hit the same roadblock as I did. What is your business with the witch? Why do you need her alive?” the tree asked

“I can’t reveal that without knowing whom I am speaking to” Rain replied.

“I am Brenda, sister of the witch imprisoned inside. I revealed myself to you only because you wanted to rescue her. State your intentions”

“My purpose is to get her out of the prison. My business with her is over the moment she is out of here”

“You are either stupid or working for someone who wants you dead” the tree chuckled

“Perhaps it’s smarter to sit here and hide instead?” Rain snapped

“Do not mock me. I am the only one the guardian cannot sense”

“Then help me to get her out. Or let me help you instead”

“It doesn’t matter if you lure the guardian out. He will know it the moment you tamper with the magic arrays. Both you and my sister will be dead in an instant”

“She’ll be dead anyway if we cannot get her out within next two days”

“You said you can get inside the prison but you cannot get her out. I cannot get inside the prison but I can get her out. Can you get me inside?”

“I can’t. If I could get you inside I could get her out as well. There is nothing stopping the guardian from sensing me and exploding the prison traps”. Silence prevailed for a while. Rain pondered over the situation and wondered why the Goddess sent her on an impossible mission. Did she want to test how Rain coped with failure or how far she was willing to go after learning that only death awaited her on the other side? Was she reading the mission incorrectly?

“Don’t be sad. We still have an option to kill the guardian and rescue your friend” Violet offered.

“Wishful thinking. These dragons you summoned can probably buy you time to escape” Brenda spoke in a mocking tone.

“And why are you so sure of that?” Rain asked.

“For 1500 years I have wandered in and out of this fortress, waiting for an opportunity to rescue my sister. There is no nook or cranny that I am unfamiliar with. I have seen millions of demons charred to death before they could step within 100 yards of the fortress. Even the mighty demon gods have perished in their crusades. You won’t even make it beyond 1800 yards” Brenda sighed.

“Why is that? And why are the demons launching crusades against this fortress?” Rain asked curiously.

“Those silhouettes on the horizon are the infamous mutated death fire towers that defend this fortress. The guardian impersonated the Lord of Destruction when the Great-War started two thousand years ago, and stole 50 death fire cannons that the Lord had crafted personally. He evaded detection of demonic bounty hunters for hundreds of years. He dismantled the cannons and experimented on them. Eventually, he found a way to merge the cannon’s power core with the fortress’ defensive structures, creating a mutant core that was more potent than the cannons. Demon God Atlock was tasked with conquering these lands during the war, and establishing the Lord’s dominion. He massacred the natives wherever he went and pillaged the lands, infusing everything with demonic energies that linger up to this day. The ground in front of us was where he fought his final battle. The mutated death fire towers annihilated the demonic juggernaut. Atlock barely managed to escape with his life after sacrificing all his personal guards. The tower’s secret was exposed and demons started flooding this area to redeem the Lord’s honour” Brenda narrated the story.

“How did your sister get mixed up in it?” Wu Lan asked innocently. There was a long pause before Brenda replied.

“My sister was madly in love with the guardian. The Goddess she served didn’t approve of their relationship. She stripped her of her powers and status and cursed their love. One of them would die if they came within 50 yards of each other. That’s why the fortress is called Star-Crossed Fortress” Brenda had tears in her eyes. Rain felt chills and goose-bumps at the revelation. Was Miranda the Champion of Chaos before her? Ancients were nothing more than self-righteous pricks.

“Then why is her life in danger?” Violet asked. There was no reason for lovers to take their lives if they hadn’t done so for so many centuries.

“My sister is a fool. She loves the guardian deeply but he merely saw her as a tool to seek the Goddess’ protection. He had her imprisoned after his plan failed to bear fruit. Recently some idiot activated the Demon God’s shrine in Star Valley. The guardian knows that he’ll be forced into a war soon. Hence, he decreed that my sister would be executed on the anniversary of the curse. That bastard wants to kill her to break the curse and save his ass, and blame her for it”

“That explains the death traps inside the prison” Violet added

“That bastard must die! Tell me all you know about the fortress defences. I need a step by step plan of invasion. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous it sounds. I’ll find a way to make it happen” Rain spoke with conviction.

“But why are you risking your life to save my sister?” Brenda asked. Tears ran down her face like a waterfall.

“The Goddess sent me here to rescue Miranda. I am sorry I couldn’t come earlier but I’ll get her out no matter what it takes” Rain spoke in a calm and confident tone. She waited for Brenda to compose herself before they chalked out an impossible plan of action. Violet was having a nightmare counting the number of impossible steps Rain had to pull off to drag the guardian out of the fortress. The timing of each of the steps had to be perfect as well.

“That defensive barrier must be taken down as quickly as possible for this plan to work. Can anyone identify its weak points?” Rain inquired.

“I can help with that” another voice interrupted their discussion. A cloaked swordsman stepped out of a spatial gate above them.

“Guild leader you are here! Brenda meet guild leader Black Flame” Rain cheered.

“I’ve heard that name. You are the idiot who activated Demon God’s shrine?” Brenda puffed with disgust. She peered into his eyes, as if trying to peek into his soul. Everybody froze for a moment at those words.

“Yes my lady” Black Flame replied calmly and truthfully. He had no reason to enrage a Tier 5 powerhouse further.

“Since you are honest and straightforward I’ll give you a chance to make amends. Help us break that turtle shell and I’ll help to lighten the curse you bear” Brenda frowned.

“You have my word” Black Flame responded. Another portal opened moments later. A lightning spear emerged from the portal and pierced the ground 200 yards away from them, unleashing a shockwave and dust cloud in all directions. Dust settled to reveal a cloaked petite figure standing at the epicentre.

“Woah! What an entrance!” Rain remarked.

“I’m sure it’s not even 10% as crazy as whatever you plan to do” Xenelia exclaimed. Brenda laughed like a maniac at the scene. It took her some time to collect herself.

“I can’t decide what is more ironic, Demon God Atlock defeated by the Lord’s cannons or a motley group, cursed by the Lord and his minions, trying to restore His honour” Brenda laughed.

“We are here for Miranda. Let’s stay focussed.” Rain reminded her. “Let’s go through the plan since everyone is here”. Rain endured the wide open jaws and pitiful glares while explaining the plan. Every step of this plan was critical. Rain promised to evacuate immediately if any of the steps went irrecoverably wrong. Black Flame patiently watched the crow cam footage. His eyes opening wider in astonishment over time.

“This is not one defensive magic barrier. There are six defensive barriers knitted together in a honeycomb shape. There are no weak points that we usually associate with magic arrays. However, there are thin parts and thick parts that move in a circular trajectory. We have a window of 1/10th of a second to pierce the thin area with an advanced tier 6 attack. The thick area would survive an apex tier 6 attack. We have to time the attack with precision”. Everyone felt disappointed and clueless after listening to Black Flame’s assessment.


	88. Old Hatreds

Everybody turned to look at Rain who was tapping the ground with the base of her staff in anger and frustration. She yelled to release her stress and cleared her throat.

“What’s the worst that can happen if I attack that fortress? I want specifics!” She turned to look at Brenda who seemed to be sheepishly enjoying her powerlessness.

“Instant disintegration! An arrogant Tier 6 Demon Price challenged the guardian once. That guy vaporised before he could blink his eyelashes. What a way to go” Brenda chuckled.

“That’s bullshit! Nothing can one shot kill a God ranked entity” Rain questioned the veracity of the claim.

“Oh dear. How little do you know! That jerk only faced a single combination attack from seven mutated death fire towers” Brenda replied in a patronising tone.

“Alright! Everybody listen up. Coordinate your strikes at the same point. I need all of you to fall behind the 2,500 yard line once the defensive barrier falls. Guild leader, Commander Xenelia, Wu Lan and Brenda will assault the guardian with all you got. Violet and the dragons will intercept the swarm of monsters that charge out of the fortress and buy you as much time as possible. We should call in the main force and deploy 10 flying ships as reserve forces. They can be mighty effective in thinning out the monster’s HP before they hit the dragon wall. Make sure they are grounded until the guardian is dead. We don’t want to lose our ships to those towers. The guardian must die within 10 minutes after the first attack for this operation to succeed.” Rain summarised.

“Wait! How does one step connect to another?” Xenelia was confused.

“It will. Trust me on this one ok?” Rain asserted. It was the second time they heard those words today. They tried really hard to wrap their heads around it but relented a while later. The reaper could never make an appearance inside Star Valley due to its extreme constraints. They worked out the details of their contributions, reinforced their positions and ran a few mock drills. Black Flame, Wu Lan and Rain left the site to arrange for reinforcements. They opened multiple portals to gather the main force members. The ships were assembled and fired up. Everyone was in position 15 minutes later. None of them had a clue what Rain intended to do.

. . . .

A spatial portal opened 1000 yards away from the fortress. A demon guard and a powerful demon noble stepped out of the portal and surveyed the area.

“Demon God Atlock’s doppelganger? Was this her plan all along?” Brenda’s jaws dropped at the scene. She had no idea how she managed to convince the Demon God to make an appearance. These two were no other than Rain’s doppelganger who used ‘Demonify’ and Wu Lan who used the ring of reflections to switch to Demon God’s persona. Black Flame was stunned when Wu Lan finished her transformation. He immediately understood Rain’s plan to lure the mirage beast and helped them with voice and aura adjustments. For him the probability of success grew from a big fat zero to a miniscule 5%. He was curious about what Rain would do next.

“Despicable thief! The hour of reckoning is here. Prepare to face Lord’s judgement” Demon God’s thundering voice echoed through the fortress walls. A warning shot was fired at them. Rain’s doppelganger laboured extensively to conjure a series of defensive mana balls, to deflect the apex tier 5 attack’s trajectory. This was one of the tricks she learnt from Violet during the city raid. A ravenous laughter followed in response.

“Pathetic coward! You dare to show your pitiful face again. Did you forget how you ran with your tail tucked between your legs thousands of years ago? Good! Very Good! It’s time to send you back to the hole you crawled out from” a phantom of Lord of Destruction bellowed. The mirage beast adopted this form, complete with voice and aura enhancements, to humiliate the Demon God’s doppelganger. The phantom lifted his sword up in the sky. Massive fluctuations erupted from the 10 towers behind him. Rain’s assessment was correct. She knew that the mirage beast would go bonkers and launch an all-out attack to annihilate the demon god’s doppelganger. This attempt however was much more vicious than she anticipated. All the 10 towers had been activated instead of the seven he used to tear the demon prince apart. A strange energy stream started filling up the sword, an indicator of when the attack would be unleashed.

“You call me a coward? It is you who is too scared to step out of your shell. You are so pathetic that you can’t even look at your own reflection in the mirror. You are a fool to think that an obnoxious insect like yourself can overpower me” Atlock’s doppelganger bellowed, mocking the phantom before erupting in a devilish laughter. It was necessary for Wu Lan to infuriate the mirage beast. This was the only way to keep him distracted and prevent him from noticing the charade. Their aim was to push him to exhaust his strongest attack upfront. Rain’s doppelganger was ready, boosted to Tier 5 with ‘Demonify’ and further fortified with Wu Lan’s domain and armed with the power of the rings in anticipation of the borderline Tier 7 attack coming her way.

“Enough of your whimsical rumblings. Be gone you wretched little cretin. Send my regards to the Lord” the phantom brought the sword down in a vertical strike, pointing it towards Atlock’s doppelganger. 10 beams shot from the towers and merged at the tip of the sword before combining into a single beam that shot towards Wu Lan. The phantom laughed hysterically when he saw the demon guard step in front of the demon god’s doppelganger to shield him. This attack had the power to vaporise everything in its path up to 5000 yards. Even the dragons in Rain’s squad shivered at the sight of the incoming beam. Only absolute annihilation awaited anyone stupid enough to take this attack head on.

Void’s Echo!

Rain was confident that the staff could withstand the basic tier 7 attack heading her way. The staff successfully absorbed the attack and bounced it back towards the mirage beast with three intertwined energy beams. Their combined power rivalling a true advanced tier 7 attack. The defensive array protecting the fortress shattered, the fortress wall caved in, the defensive array protecting the inner courtyard shattered, 20,000 monsters in front of the mirage beast were instantly vaporised. The mirage beast lost over 80% HP despite the invulnerability shield he swiftly cast upon himself. The impact flung him in the air and knocked him against the fortress wall, stunning him for 10 seconds.

Rain anticipated a full powered attack. She prepared for it by pumping 4,510,427,523,250 EXP into ‘Voidwalker’s staff’ to bring it to legendary level 6. The mindboggling amount of EXP could have burst her over level 200 if she figured out a way to do so. She pumped another 4,961,470,275,577 EXP to burst it to level 7. At level 7 the peak legendary staff could rebound the attack with 420% of original damage, +450% void damage and +475% darkness damage. She was satisfied with this level of upgrade. As a precautionary measure Rain unsummoned Wu Lan using the personal guard scroll moments before the attack landed. She was already back to her normal form when Rain summoned her again.

Everybody in Rain’s team was too shocked to react. They had forgotten that they were supposed to synchronise their attacks with her to bring down the barrier. They weren’t even aware of the barrier inside the barrier. How quickly the tables turned. The first two steps of the plan had been executed to perfection. The results were beyond their wildest dreams. Rain finished drawing “Soul Drain” using ‘Hexotic Trap’ and nodded to Wu Lan to start step 3. This was the most critical step. With the defensive barriers gone Wu Lan could open a portal to anywhere she wished. She opened one right over the stunned mirage beast. Rain took a deep breath and executed a skill.

Swap Position!

This was the first time she executed it through a spatial channel to overcome the 350 yards limit and it worked wonderfully. Thousands of monsters who encircled their guardian were shell shocked when they found Rain standing at his spot. The trap was powered the moment she left and instantly drained 50% of the beast’s soul level. Rain’s doppelganger used “Chains of Judgement” to restrain the crippled beast and switched places with her real body. Wu Lan gave it a taste of ‘Starfire Burst’. Rain joined Xenelia, Black Flame and Brenda to attack the mirage beast relentlessly. A well placed ‘Flame Burst’ drained the last shreds of the Guardian’s HP. Its body erupted into particles of light. Rain sucked its soul using the eye. A mound of loot appeared on the ground a while later. Most of these 100 items sucked mana from the environment towards themselves.

“I am here to help Rain. I have no interest in these drops. I’ll be willing to trade if you have any items related to Abyss or stuff for dark players” Xenelia declared.

“I am here for my sister” Brenda declared before moving towards Wu Lan. “Please send me to her. I beg you” Brenda pleaded. Securing her sister was more important than fighting tens of thousands of monsters that were running towards them. This wasn’t a part of the plan but Wu Lan relented. She couldn’t save her own sister and she wouldn’t stand in the path of one.

Star Valley Region System Announcement: A player has successfully captured the Star-Crossed Fortress. The Guild this player belongs to will receive 30,000 Guild Reputation Points. This player has become the Star-Crossed Fortress's Lord. The Fortress will automatically open to the public in three days. Players may enter and rest within the fortress freely at that time.

The system announcement repeated throughout the Star Valley three times. Everyone who heard this froze in shock. The defenders in Starlight fortress wore clueless looks as well. Zero Wing’s members were still trickling in through various methods and the top brass had locked themselves inside a meeting room.

. . . . .

"What's going on?"

"Someone captured the Star-Crossed Fortress?"

“Capturing that fortress is much more difficult than capturing a large fortress in Star Valley. Why would someone be so stupid and reckless?”

“Must be a demonic power. The bounty on its guardian’s head is worth more than the resources the fortress commands”

“Send someone there and investigate this matter. We must take this fortress for ourselves before they have a chance to repair the defensive structures”

. . . . .


	89. Impossible Mission

First four steps of Rain’s plan were a resounding success. However, all these steps did not offer any assistance in breaking through the prison to rescue Miranda. The godly magic array and the insidious trap were much more difficult to overcome.

Rain’s doppelganger found herself in a precarious position. She was surrounded on all sides by monsters with threatening auras. Her only option was to turn turtle and run. However, there was nowhere left to run. She activated ‘void guard’, ‘void domain’, ‘teleprompt’ and ‘invisibility’ and jumped over the encirclement. She ran all over the place, leaving a trail of ‘singularity’, and flooding the fortress with tier 4 void monsters. She knew this was a futile exercise. The monsters inside were much higher levelled with a good mix of high and superior mythic monsters leading the defence. This wasn’t a force to be taken lightly. The loss of attribute boost from the magic arrays didn’t have a major impact on their combat power. She realised soon enough that invisibility and the illusions created through singularity were useless against these monsters. It wasn’t the guardian who could sense her presence in nether crow form. It was another monster that was aiding the guardian to visualize all the crows and track their movements. Even that monster was helpless against a ‘Space Hop’.

She was willing to sacrifice herself to stall for time and give the team outside a fighting chance to overpower and eliminate the monsters charging at them. She found a safe spot and started dual hexing after the duration of teleprompt was over. She peppered the fortress with AOE spells, using a mix of affinity skills and combat techniques to evade the monsters trying to attack her. ‘Space Hop’ saved her from critical damage multiple times. She reset her skill cooldown and repeated the exercise. She exhausted every skill and spell in her arsenal by the time her HP fell below 5%. She had a wry smile on her face when she hopped again and cast ‘earth mother’s touch’ to heal herself back to full HP.

The carnage started all over again with Blood Fury’s blessings. She had already learnt everything she needed to know about the monsters and her surroundings. She solely focussed on maximising her damage and slaughter as many as possible before her summoned duration expired. Precision training with Snow and Yueru raised her combat power by almost 5%. The ridiculousness of the fight helped her sharpen her skills at a much faster pace. She had already exhausted her entire arsenal of skills, spells and hexes for the fourth and final time and was relishing the last few moments of her existence by making the monsters kill each other while trying to attack her. She managed to slay over 50,000 level 140+ monsters that included a sizable amount of mythic and a handful of high mythic monsters before teleporting inside the prison complex and swapping places with Rain.

. . . . .

Brenda arrived outside the prison complex and camouflaged her presence. The prison’s magic arrays were still active and its defenders diligently guarded the area. They were instructed to activate the trap the moment they confirmed any attempt to break the prisoner free. She had to move slowly and cautiously through the narrow passageways to avoid detection. It took her a while to reach Miranda’s holding cell.

“Are you the one who took my love’s life?” Miranda yelled with teary eyes.

“I contributed. Aren’t you happy to see your elder sister after so many years?” Brenda smirked

“You killed mother and father, you killed our little sister. Parasite! I can’t wait to teach you a lesson” Miranda raged.

“Hahaha. I have waited far too long as well. 1,500 years! I finally have a chance to kill you and claim your core”

“That’s so sad. You didn’t even figure in my thoughts” Miranda chuckled in a mocking tone. “I have lost count of the time I spent hating the Goddess for what she did to me. It’s funny how incarceration forces you to reflect upon the past and gain clarity over the present. I was a fool to allow myself to be used as a tool. I will not allow you to use me either” Miranda resolved

“How will you do that my dear little sister? Your Goddess sent someone to rescue you and I convinced them that I am going to save my foolish sister’s life. It seems your Goddess is attracted to stupid people. They are too busy fighting the monsters outside to worry about you. Both of us will be long gone by the time they manage to figure something out” Brenda chimed

“It took me over 1000 years to realise that the Goddess never let me down. Trusting someone isn’t stupidity. Trusting blindly is. I’ll take you down with me” Miranda grabbed a utensil and smashed it against the prison walls. She expected sirens to blare and guards to come rushing in. Surprisingly nobody responded to the alarms. She cowered at her predicament but stood firm on her ground.

“My stupid and brave little sister. Did you really think I’ll let you exploit such a juicy loophole? I have put all of them to sleep. Don’t worry they will all go out with a bang when I am done with you” Brenda burst into an evil laughter while drawing a hex under the prison cell. Miranda was locked inside her cell and had no way to escape or defend herself. She closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle. Her prayer wasn’t in vain. There was a deafening loud bang, followed by a blinding flash. Someone lifted her off the ground and raced out at lightning speed. She was flung in the air before a massive explosion ripped through the surroundings. She found herself crashing against a solid rock 2500 yards outside the fortress when she regained her eyesight. Six dragons and 10 airships were raining fire over the battlefield. Another projectile landed tens of yards away from her a few seconds later.

“Ouch. Shucks. That was close” Rain whined in pain. She was already on ‘Life Support’. The explosion had blasted away her ‘Void Guard’ and ‘Absolute Defence Shield’, penetrated her ‘Layered Defence’ and drained 96% of her HP. She winced around in pain before calming herself and cast ‘Earth Mother’s Touch’ to restore her HP.

“Who are you and why did you save me?” Miranda demanded. Rain was in too much pain to respond. She merely flashed her signet ring. Miranda burst into tears at the revelation. She thought Brenda was toying with her emotions by mentioning the Goddess’ hand. She relinquished her beliefs and abandoned her over 1500 years ago for a love trap but the Goddess still cared enough to send someone to rescue her. Rain waited for her to calm down and rise above the burden of guilt that overwhelmed her.

. . . . .

Rain’s intuition was her greatest weapon. Brenda’s mocking tone and trifling mannerism didn’t fit the bill of someone dead worried about her sister. It was too easy to convince her to help. Her blatant omission of a second protective barrier was nothing but an attempt to buy time. Her suspicions were confirmed when she begged to be teleported inside the prison the moment the Guardian died. She had already become a pawn in Rain's game. Little did she know that Rain’s doppelganger had placed a spy ward at the entrance of her prison cell during one of her runs. She could monitor the area and respond to threats if needed. Thankfully their conversation gave her sufficient time to prepare a fast and furious response. The only way for Rain to raise her attributes was through ‘Handy Mode’. She equipped the spear and prepared her attacks.

Speed Burst!

Power Boost!

Void Fire!

Attack Queue!

Lord’s Judgement!

Evil Smite!

Baptism by Fire!

Sucker Punch!

Death by Sacrifice!

She buffed up her defences once the queue was full. 

Void Guard!

Absolute Defence Shield!

She ran in and used ‘Timing and Placement’ to land in front of Brenda.

Chaotic Shock!

Chains of Judgement!

Power Drain!

Release Queue!

Rain was amazed with the effects of void fire on the attack queue. Five attacks merged into a single overpowering attack and wiped out over 90% of Brenda’s HP, who had surprisingly managed to evade the effects of power drain by a significant margin.

“She must have been Tier 6 and forcefully suppressed herself to avoid suspicion” Rain pondered. She didn’t dwell on the matter for long and finished her off with a combat technique.

Bronze Combat Technique: Spatial Smash!

Bronze Combat Technique: Spatial Smash!

Brenda was chained and suffering from a stun debuff. Rain had no problem in disposing her off. She picked up the drops and her soul and focussed on getting Miranda out of her cell. She wasn’t strong enough to destroy the magic array nor was she skilled enough to disable the trap. However, she was sure that no matter what, Brenda would have to deal with the magic arrays to get to Miranda. As expected, 1500 years of tinkering with the various layers and elements had given her enough insight into its flaws. She managed to figure a way out to subvert the array, albeit temporarily. Rain knew that the trap would trigger the moment she broke through the prison cell. She had less than a minute before the magic array either reverted back to normal or collapsed upon itself, triggering the trap along with it. She had to take a chance. It was now or never. She swapped “Voidwalker’s Staff” with “Staff of Neverwinter”.

Summon Frost Guardian!

There was no response. Summoning was disabled inside the prison complex. She wanted to summon the guardian and have it freeze the trap activation mechanism. She picked her brains and came up with an idea.

“Why look at a dead tree when I can burn the whole forest down” she mumbled before executing a combat technique.

Silver Combat Technique: Time Freeze!

She burnt almost 30% concentration in the process. She smashed through the cell, cast ‘teleprompt’, grabbed Miranda and ran through the meandering passage for her life. The frozen mechanism gave way earlier than she anticipated. She was 50 yards from the spatial portal when she sensed the trigger activate. She flung Miranda with all her might into the portal. The space around her started to crumble with one high powered blast following another. The impact force from the explosions flung her back into the prison. Her teleportation skill failed her. She pulled herself up and ran towards the exit again. Chains of explosions ripped through her protective shields.

Erase Past!

Her defences were shattered again by the time she reached within 5 yards of the semi sealed exit. She used the spear to vault over the debris and jumped into the portal.

The prison and the traps were strengthened by the Guardian by fusing twenty death fire cannon cores. He prepared this treat for the Lord of Destruction! There was always a chance of the Lord leading a crusade personally. He planned to lure him inside the prison and seek mutual destruction if things got beyond control.

. . . . .


	90. A Champion’s Might

Wu Lan wondered why those two were idling and peering into the void while the rest of them were getting their asses whopped by the monster army. She ran over to check on them. She was furious at the lazy bums leeching off in the thick of a war.

“Hey! This is a warzone and you guys are slacking off. We are almost out of spells and these monsters are not going to kill themselves” the frustration in her voice was a wakeup call for both of them. Black Flame’s personal guards had joined the fight. A tier 5 demon was busy assisting the dragons to maintain the frontlines.

“Do you trust me enough to gear me up?” Miranda asked sincerely.

“The Goddess does. So do I” Rain smiled back. She asked Wu Lan to pass her the epic legacy set she found at the dark witch’s tower. She passed her a fragmented legendary legacy staff as well. They watched power surge through Miranda as soon as she swapped into the equipment. She used a blade to carve the symbol of the Goddess on her forehead and ran into the battlefield.

“Woah! What came over her?” Wu Lan had her jaws open at Miranda’s transformation.

“Hey slacker. Get back to work” Rain yelled, laughing hysterically at Wu Lan. She gave her a cheesy look before running to catch up with Miranda.

Miranda was no stranger to wars. Being a champion required her to manage all kinds of conflicts. It took her just one look to read the situation with utmost clarity. The players around her were slightly below 50% HP and their only healer was almost out of mana. They faced a force of over 200,000 level 150+ monsters. Almost 250 of these were mythic and higher. 9 of 17 superior mythic monsters were in a berserk state. Despite being well coordinated, precise and lethal with their attacks, they had only made this far since monsters were primarily focussed on the dragons. She prepared to buff her allies and boost their combat power before striking at her enemies.

Miranda ran 50 yards behind Black Flame’s group and started digging the ground with her staff. After creating a small hole she stabbed the ground with all her might, lodging her staff half way through it. She hammered the loose gravel with her hands and used her blood to draw some insignias around it. She powered the insignias using her life force and released ripples of mystical crimson energy in all directions.

Blood Cancellation!

Everybody felt a turbulent energy assault their bodies and shatter some invisible chains around them. They were liberated from all environmental suppression in the area. They could use their berserk skills freely for the next 120 seconds. Miranda had given them a new lease of life. Black Flame immediately activated ‘Heavenly Dragon’s Power’, unlocking the strength of dragons! The presence of six dragons in his party had already boosted his attributes tremendously. He ran to the frontlines and finally cut loose, instantly killing mythic monsters with each combat technique he executed, piling the ground with bodies and loot. Violet activated ‘Power of Darkness’ and ran into the frontlines as well. 30 threads shot out of her body and lodged themselves into the high and superior mythic monsters who were struggling against the sudden shift of balance. Rain could sense Violet’s mana regenerate much faster than before.

Miranda waited for the staff’s core to stabilise the mystical energy. She ran to the centre of the group and drew another insignia on the ground.

Blood Transfusion!

A bloody aura surrounded each of her allies, increasing their defence and restoring their HP by 5% per second for the next 30 seconds. Miranda was happy to sense the team’s morale recovering faster than their HP. It was time to raise the stakes. She started making weird movements with her hands and feet. Even Rain and Wu Lan were flummoxed at the sight.

“Is she quadruple hexing?” Rain asked Wu Lan with a shocked look.

“No. She is drawing a single hex. A big one! A super hex! We better prepare to heal her. This one might be bigger than what you unleashed on that temple” Wu Lan panicked. She forgot she was casting something midway and narrowly escaped a backlash.

“Violet. You only need to heal me for the next 10 seconds” Rain shouted out to her, confusing her since she was already at full HP.

“Is she planning to suck all the damage for the next 10 seconds?” Violet thought but gave up on the idea. Rain ran around to pick a spot. Shimmering threads shot out of her body and connected everyone to her.

Threads of Life!

“Tell them to recede by 100 yards” Miranda shouted out to Rain. Everybody heard it clearly and swiftly retreated 105 yards.

Blood Fatigue!

Miranda lost 50% HP in an instant. Her HP continued to drop like a waterfall. Rain immediately pumped 10% of her own HP into her, restoring it above 50% mark before it receded again. Rain pumped 5% of her HP into everyone else to heal them back to full HP. Violet had no idea what was going on. Rain was losing HP drastically while being in a safe zone and everyone else gained HP despite weathering attacks on the frontlines. She cast ‘Holy Blessing’ and ‘Healing Fountain’ under Rain’s feet to continuously heal her every second. The see-saw of HP figures saw Rain juggle between the 5%-50% limit for the next 3 seconds. She was struggling to keep Miranda alive.

Everybody was too focussed on the transfusions to notice the effects of the super hex Miranda drew. Monsters within 2000 yards lost 5% stamina every second. The result was a lot more obvious when some of the monsters collapsed on the ground 20 seconds later. Even the mightiest of the monsters was crawling on the ground before the 30 seconds duration of the hex was over. Rain however wasn’t pleased with the effort. There was something about Miranda that she couldn’t wrap her head around. She couldn’t figure out her game plan. Miranda lost a baffling 300% HP in the process.

Miranda wasn’t done yet. She was eager to finish the battle in one fell swoop. She was constantly twirling and tapping the staff with her eyes closed. She released an ominous super spell five seconds later, colouring the sky red. Huge crimson tornadoes hovered over the entire 2500 yards between the fortress and the battlefield. The monsters suddenly noticed their vision turn red. They were too drained to move their bodies out of the spell’s range. There was nowhere to run.

System: Recognised Origin Super Spell “Blood Torrent”. Do you wish to record it in the “The Grimoire of Over-tier Spells”?

“What? Now this!” Rain was stunned at the notification. Miranda was Tier 4 and casting an origin super spell. The backlash could severely weaken and even cripple her. She immediately started dual hexing “Cleansing Fountain” and “Silent Degradation” and powered them below everyone’s feet a few seconds after Miranda unleashed her spell. She was hit by a backlash moments later. She lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground.

The monsters were faring far worse. Streams of blood erupted from their eyes, blinding them and lifting them higher over time. They lost HP constantly as the tornadoes sucked them dry. This was only the start of their misery. The tornadoes gathered sufficient blood to unleash the second stage of attack after 30 seconds. Semi paralysed monsters were slammed to the ground. The tornadoes exploded encore, releasing blood lightning shards that penetrated the monsters, wiping billions of HP and dismembered their limbs in the process. Third and the final stage kicked in when the lighting shards exploded upon impact with the ground, wiping out the last shreds of HP from the few who survived the first two stages. The battlefield fell silent.

Everybody with the exception of Rain and Wu Lan had picked up 4 to 6 levels. Black Flame reached level 140. Violet reached level 139. Rest of the main force was tottering around level 132-136. Xenelia was the poorest of the lot. She needed three times the EXP to level up at tier 3. She shot up to level 134.

“Check if there is anybody who is watching us?” Rain asked Wu Lan. She closed her eyes and meditated for a moment.

“Not yet. There is a group 3000 yards away and closing in. We have less than 5 seconds” Wu Lan replied. Her response alerted everyone to operation clean up. Black Flame instructed all excess manpower to alight from the flying ships and start collecting the loot. He opened a space gate to fly the ship out to Starlight Fortress. The dragons were instructed to fly into the fortress and engage the monsters still lodged inside. Everybody with the exception of Rain, Wu Lan and Xenelia got to work. Rain ran over to collect more souls. The superior mythic monsters were all clustered around Black Flame and the dragons prior to the super hex and super spell. She collected the souls and returned to check on Miranda.

“Her vitals are alright. She used too much stamina and concentration. She should be able to recover without any penalties” Wu Lan assessed.

“Where is her sister Brenda?” Xenelia asked

“It’s best that I show you” Rain played the recording from the ‘spy ward’. Xenelia and Wu Lan burnt with rage at what transpired inside the prison cell. Even dark players weren’t vicious enough to hunt their own comrades for power. They were relieved that Rain killed that NPC before she could do more damage. Her death however was too quick and thoroughly unsatisfying. They itched for blood. Rain pointed them towards a group of players on the horizon. Xenelia was tickled at the sight.

“The whole day I prayed for a miracle. It’s finally here” she quipped. Wu Lan was slow to latch on to the joke but she laughed the loudest. Rain reset her cooldown and drew another rejuvenation hex after the first one finished. Wu Lan and Xenelia left to welcome the group of 500 tier 4 players from super guild Miracle.

. . . . .

“Commander Xenelia! We are so happy you managed to crawl to Tier 3. We wondered if you would ever reach that far. Poor Solid Wind lost 100 gold betting you couldn’t” a cloaked berserker mocked her.

“That bitch made me lose so much money. I’m glad I ran into her today. I hope I can recover my money selling her cheap equipment” Solid Wind smirked. None of these players were aware of Xenelia’s bloodline, its capabilities and her God mode conquests. None of them knew that she achieved 92% bonding with an epic mana body. She gained thrice the attributes per level and 15 x tier free attribute every five levels at tier 3. She was the only one who could enter a berserk state within Star Valley. Her epic set, legendary spear, and an over-tier berserk skill was all she needed to wipe out this group of players. She however had no intention of revealing any of these trump cards to her enemies.

“Commander Loose Cannon! I thought that you came over to check on Star-Crossed Fortress. I was here the entire time. I could sell you the information you need” Xenelia calmly responded to the insinuation with a surreal smile.


	91. Hammer of Slamrock

Loose Cannon was stumped at those words. It felt like a dream come true. Knowing the enemy well enough was akin to winning without fighting a war.

“So your pitiful existence does have some benefits after all. State your price” Loose Cannon smirked.

“Nothing too expensive. Your worthless lives might just be enough to foot the bill” Xenelia stated with a deadpan face. The expectant puppy like faces of Miracle's forces suddenly turned pale. A 180 degree shift of discourse would have made a chameleon blush. The players burst into a raucous laughter moments later. This was the team Miracle chose whenever they attacked a town or city. Every member of this team was an expert.

“And who is that chick next to you? Is she a package deal if we thump you?” Solid Wind mocked.

“Don’t mind me. I’m only here to watch. I win 1 gold coin for every second you guys manage to stay alive. I really hope you can hold her back for 60 seconds. Could you guys last that long? Please!” Wu Lan was at her cheesy best. The cringe in her voice made the group shiver inwardly. Their clamour gave way to silence when bat-like wings appeared behind Xenelia. The wings turned translucent and she vanished from the spot.

“Where did she go? Check the body sensor!” Loose Cannon bellowed. Everybody panicked when nothing showed up on the epic tool they used to trace assassins and other invisible entities. They suddenly felt a threat to their lives.

“She is just above you” Wu Lan chuckled, forcing everyone to look upwards. There was no movement or fluctuations to be spotted. Someone noticed an anomaly moments later.

“That other woman disappeared as well” a player shouted. Two ladies had vanished into thin air, right before their eyes. They herded together like frightened lambs, hoping to find some clues but they weren’t any to be found. Rain however, was watching the scene with utmost clarity from a distance. She was laughing away after discovering a gargantuan flaw with the spectral form.

“Numbers never lie” she chuckled loudly after equipping ‘Fairy Shades’. A spear lodged into Loose Cannon’s head, setting off an explosion that splattered brain juice and gore on everyone around him. The spear had revealed itself moments before it struck. Their commander was dead before he could react. The rest of his team activated their tier 3 battle arrays to raise their attributes by 250%, and share their senses, buffs and damage. This battle array was the reason these players were exceptionally difficult to kill.

Xenelia had the perfect response to their shared-sensory state. She hadn’t had an opportunity to test her tier 3 domain skill so far. A bloody mist flooded the area moments later. All targets within her domain temporarily lost 20% of their attributes for the next 60 seconds. It dulled their senses, reduced movement and attack speed and reaction time. 25% of the drained attributes were channelled back to her. Each of Miracle’s 499 players was contributing 5% of their battle array powered attributes to Xenelia, boosting her already insane attributes to ridiculous levels. She flickered from player to player in a seemingly random pattern, needling them with the spear. Her movement speed was so fast that it appeared as if spears were raining on the area.

“Stop having fun already. We need to infiltrate the fortress before they seal the doors shut” Wu Lan blurted. Rain messaged her that all the loot had been cleared and they didn’t need to buy any more time. This however didn’t stop her from playing along and having fun. Xenelia understood the context and moved in to finish the fight.

Spear of Destruction!

Rain held her hands on her face while watching the 500 yards area around the players flooded by thick destruction energy. This skill was too similar to ‘Circle of Destruction’ and was much more powerful. Was Lord of Destruction jealous of someone named Abyss? There was no reason for him to curse someone unless he felt threatened by them. There was enough lore about Demon God Paimon leading demonic and monster armies to conquer the ‘Abyss’. The ‘Endless Abyss’ was confined and sealed away by the War God’s temple. Was it a place? Race? Clan? Or Person? She decided to investigate the matter when she had a chance. There were more pressing issues to attend to at the moment. Miranda was free, yet the Goddess hadn’t updated the status of the task. Did she miss something or rescue the wrong person?

Miranda woke up a few seconds after the second rejuvenation cycle was over. Though out of danger, she was still weak and hazy.

“Did we win?” She blabbered.

“Obviously. How could we lose when we have you on our side” Rain spoke with a tinge of anger and dissatisfaction.

“I am glad I could help. Thanks for saving my life earlier and helping me recover quickly” Miranda expressed her gratitude slowly, in a soft voice. She was too scared to make eye contact with Rain.

“There is something you are not telling me. I would appreciate it if you tell me exactly what’s going on” Rain demanded. Something didn’t add up. Her question shook Miranda to the core. She didn’t know how to respond. It took her awhile to collect her courage and speak again.

“I betrayed the Goddess. It’s your duty as her champion to execute me and uphold justice” Miranda had tears in her eyes. Any other time or place, she would have fought Rain tooth and nail and killed her to protect herself. However, she didn’t have the will to attack someone who risked her life to save her from certain death. She decided to take her own life by pumping her entire life force into a super hex. Rain saved her. Frustrated by her failure, she attempted a super spell without any safeguards, hoping that she would never have to wake up again. However, Rain didn’t allow her misadventure to succeed once again.

“That explains why you were so reckless just now” Rain understood what was going through her head. Miranda was too overwhelmed to carry on the conversation.

“If you are really so eager to kill yourself, why not work for me?” Rain asked, smiling at her. Miranda was confused by Rain’s statement. It was absurd. Those words made no sense to her. Was letting her die inside the fortress not satisfactory enough to punish her? She stared into Rain’s eyes pondering over her intentions, and wondering what kind of death she planned for her. The blank look of desperation and fear prompted Rain to explain further.

“The Goddess wouldn’t have bothered tasking me to save you if she wanted you dead. From now onwards you are free to pursue any path of your choosing. However, I see that you have a lot of fire in your heart. So I am giving you an option to work with me. My path is a dangerous one. Today’s battle was a glimpse of the life I live. There are many more battles to be fought. There is no guarantee that we will live through every one of them. I would be honoured to share a battlefield with someone as experienced and capable as yourself. So what do you say?” Rain was direct and concise in her explanation. Miranda finally understood that Rain was offering her another chance at life. She wondered why Rain hadn’t used the Goddess’ name to negotiate with her and decided to ask her.

“I fear the Goddess will not take it kindly if I join hands with you”

“Oh crap! She gets her ex-champion back for free. That’s double whammy. She will surely put us through the ringer” Rain’s knee jerk reaction made Miranda laugh. She was tearing and laughing at the same time. The Goddess always rewarded her with more tasks if she did a good job. She agreed to become Rain's personal guard and fight alongside her. Rain was shocked to see her attribute panel.

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[Miranda Soulspear, Hammer of Slamrock] (Thoughtful Rain’s Personal Guard)

Class: Tier 4 Ancient Unique Class, Blood Witch

Race: Dragon Elf

Level: 147

Loyalty: 82

Growth Potential: 128

Alignment: Ruin [Primary: 500%], Life [Secondary: 475%], Death [Tertiary: 380%]

Intelligence: 11,780

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“Titled one with an ancient unique class! Didn’t the goddess strip her of all titles?” Rain stuttered with excitement. She understood why Miranda would have trouble trusting others around her. Despite being a powerful warrior and a capable commander, she was thoroughly damaged on the inside. She was just a corpse with a pulse. Having a suicidal maniac in her team could jeopardise their cause and plunge them into difficult situations at times. Rain wondered how to help and support her further.


	92. Spike Appendage

“Strike the iron while it’s hot! Perhaps it works for the psyche too?" Rain wondered whether to intervene or give Miranda some space to recover from her internal tussles.

“I know you are going through a difficult patch. I am confident you will get over this” Rain took out the items Brenda dropped and placed them before her. She had to make peace with her past if she wanted to move forward. Miranda’s despair transformed into rage at the sight of the mutated power core. She felt an urge to smash it to pieces but held back after noticing an anomaly. She used a knife to scrape through the murky green power core, slowing working her way through it. A brilliant white pearl was all that remained of it a few seconds later. This pearl was so pure that it naturally rejected all corruption around it. She pressed the pearl tightly against her chest and broke down in tears. She drew another insignia on the ground a while later and burnt everything else to ash.

Rain was distracted by the glow of her signet ring.

System: Congratulations! You have completed a task assigned to you by the Goddess of Chaos. Awarding +2,000 authority points. 2 new tasks have been allocated to you.

System: Congratulations! Goddess of Chaos acknowledges your efforts towards rescuing blood witch Miranda and giving her a new lease of life. Awarding +25,000 authority points, +1 Spike Appendage [Legendary Rank, Belt Kit], +1 Chaos affinity stone, +1 Tier 4 Skill Book, +10 Legacy Skill Points.

Rain breathed a deep sigh of relief at the notifications. Her task was finally complete. Rescuing Miranda from the fortress wasn’t enough. She had to rescue her from herself as well. She immediately boosted her chaos affinity. Too much variation between elemental compositions was detrimental to her health. She had a close shave with death in Demon God Town.

System: You have gained 25% affinity with Chaos mana. Total affinity is now 175%

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Seal of Authority (Legendary Rank, Signet Ring)

User Restriction: Champion of Chaos (Bound to Thoughtful Rain)

. . . . . . . . 

Current points tally: 37,100/70,000. Accumulate 70,000 points to upgrade to the next level.

. . . . . . . . 

Current Tasks:

  1. Retrieve Tome of Champions. Status: Return the tome to Goddess of Chaos
  2. Retrieve Champion of Evil. Status: Return the sealed champion to Goddess of Chaos
  3. Negotiate safe passage for armies of Chaos through the Barrens of Tulegore. Status: Yet to start. No deadline.
  4. Help Blood Witch Miranda to revive her sister Ananda. Status: Yet to start. No deadline. Note: No rewards or penalties apply to this task.
  5. Capture and retrieve elemental soul eaters. Status: Yet to start. No deadline. Note: Minimum quantity required - 1. Each unique elemental you collect adds to your rewards. Your status as a champion must remain a secret throughout this mission.



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Wisps of Chaos (Peak Tier 4 Legacy Spell)

Attach a wisp of chaos energy to up to 25 friendly targets. Wisp reduces concentration and stamina cost for all spells, hexes and combat techniques by 30% for the next 120 seconds.

Every 50% chaos affinity above 100% reduces costs by additional 5% and increases duration by 15 seconds

Cooldown: 5 hours

Requirements: Tier 4 or higher witch, Affinity [100% Chaos, 50% Ruin].

Cast the spell 50 times with at least 80% completion rate to learn it.

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Spike Appendage [Legendary Rank, Belt Toolkit]

User Restriction: Champion of Chaos (Bound to Thoughtful Rain)

This support toolkit has five pockets. It can be mounted on a belt or can be used as a belt if no belt is equipped.

Passive Skill 1: Double Down

When mounted over a belt, doubles the attributes, damage and defence benefits of the belt. No impact in standalone mode

Passive Skill 2: Concealed Occupation

The belt kit melds with its surroundings whenever the bounded user enters any of the pockets. The belt is hidden from most forms of detection while this skill is active. If the belt kit is discovered or attacked, the bounded user will be automatically ejected from the pocket.

Pocket 1 Ability: Spatial Storage Pouch

Warehouse storage can store 30,000 slots worth of bag items and 1000 customisable non-bag space items.

The pocket can be accessed freely without any restrictions.

Pocket 2 Ability: Void Spiky Prison

Can be used as a temporary prison complex to hold prisoners up to 7 days in a hermetically sealed void environment. Capacity depends on the tier of prisoners as follows:

Tier 2 or below: 50 prisoners

Tier 3: 30 prisoners

Tier 4: 10 prisoners

Tier 5: 1 prisoner

Requires 20 mana stones per day to maintain the prison environment. Prisoners will be automatically released if their hold duration expires or power runs out. Functionality will be automatically activated or deactivated depending on usage.

Pocket 2 Active Skill 1: Imprison

Cast on a user with maximum 10% HP to place them inside void spiky prison. This skill will automatically evict the longest serving prisoner(s) to make way for the new prisoner in cases of capacity overflow.

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Pocket 2 Active Skill 2: Release Prisoner

Releases the specified prisoner. The released prisoner will be silenced for 10 seconds and regain full HP and mana after 15 seconds

Cooldown: 1 second

Pocket 3 Ability: Temporal Retreat

Provides a private and secure environment to relax and rejuvenate. Your personal quarters include a training room and a meditation hall.

Training room provides a custom environment for learning skills, spells, hexes and combat techniques. Users can simulate training partners or combat dummies and adjust the complexity of the learning environment. Temporal dilation can be set to a maximum of 1000%. Requires 5 mana stones per user, per hour, to operate. Costs double for every 100% beyond 500% time dilation.

Requires 1 mana stone per hour to operate. Maximum of 5 people are allowed inside the temporal retreat at a time. Users will be automatically evicted if power supply runs out. Functionality will be automatically activated or deactivated depending on usage.

Pocket 3 Active Skill 1: Immersion

Allows the target to enter the temporal retreat. The retreat is activated automatically if needed.

Targets can leave the retreat anytime they wish.

Cooldown: 1 second

Pocket 3 Active Skill 2: Eviction

Forcefully remove the selected targets from the retreat.

Cooldown: none

Pocket 4 Ability: Illusory Magic Workshop

Magic Workshop allows you to analyse, research, craft and test, magic arrays, spells and hexes and improve upon existing ones. Every spell, hex or magic array you craft increases your crafting proficiency. Creating new spells, hexes and magic arrays improves your magic proficiency.

Requires 10 mana stones per hour to operate. Only one person is allowed to use the magic workshop at a time. Operational cost might vary depending on the tier of the spells or hexes being tested. Temporal dilation can be set to a maximum of 500%.

Pocket 4 Active Skill 1: Activate Magic Workshop

Target user will be transferred to the workshop when it is activated.

Cooldown: none

Pocket 5 Ability: Divine Grand Colosseum

Enter the colosseum to challenge a boss and test your combat standards. You are only allowed to challenge someone of higher rank, level and same or higher tier. You can accept a challenge from any party. You’ll be automatically matched with a challenger if you do not make a selection within a specified time. Only common equipment is allowed inside the colosseum. Usage of tools, equipment skills and berserk skills are disabled.

Requires 25 mana stones to operate. Up to 20 persons can enter the colosseum at a time. Heroes, Brave Ones and Champions will have their basic attributes suppressed by 20%. Users are evicted after two hours or if they lose two challenges.

Pocket 5 Active Skill 1: Activate Grand Colosseum

Activates the colosseum and transfers up to 20 people around 20 yards into it.

Duration: 2 hours

Cooldown: 5 hours

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“Damn! Goddess monitors everything” Rain was awestruck with the rewards. The tier 4 skill would have worked wonders for them in the battle earlier. Despite spending so much time in training she hadn’t been able to find time to learn new spells. The belt kit was just the thing she needed right now.

Miranda was staring into the void, holding the pearl to her chest. Rain was touched by the Goddess’ noble and caring gesture. She assigned her a personal task to help Miranda move on. She had no clue how to go about reviving Ananda and give Miranda a reason to cherish her life. She didn’t have to dwell on the issue for long.

“Thank you for helping to steamroll those monsters” Wu Lan ran into Miranda and gave her a tight hug. Rain was worried Miranda’s rage would explode on her. She was pleasantly surprised when Wu Lan’s high pitch voice melted Miranda’s heart. Both of them lost a sister they doted on. They could help each other fill the gaping hole in their hearts. The four ladies made their way into the fortress to check on the situation inside.


	93. Thrill Seeking Junkie

Zero Wing’s main force was busy fighting the monsters entrenched within the fortress. Black Flame, Violet, Fire, Shadow Song, Cola, Aqua Rose and 50 other main force members banded together with two dragons and a demon to eliminate a group of 60 mythic, 25 high mythic and eight level 150+ superior mythic bosses that stood in their path. Over 500 main force and reserve main force members were toiling to break through the barricades and clear a path towards the central courtyard. Rain was disappointed that both Zhao Yueru and Alluring Summer were missing from this batch. Those war junkies would have blasted the fortress to smithereens just to evict its occupants.

Violet was singlehandedly kiting and engaging nine high mythic slumber beasts who mistook her for a weak target. She was carefully meandering through the narrow passageways, randomly attacking and piling more and more monsters on her tail. Monsters found it hard to attack her due to the illusory combat techniques and tiny hops she randomly executed at each step. Rain felt that she was simply toying with them, keeping them away from the main force to give them enough time to take down the bosses and their minions.

Miranda however wasn’t impressed. She didn’t believe in playing with her prey. She sprang into action by drawing an insignia on the ground. Wu Lan teleported a combination attack from the high mythic monsters to one of the superior mythic wiping 25% of its HP. Rain hexed ‘Pins and Needles’ on the monsters that were buried deep within the barricades and were giving the main force a tough time. Xenelia ‘charged’ on the boss with the least HP. Her body transformed into a lightning spear midway and shot forward, wiping half of the boss’ remaining HP and stunning it for 5 seconds. Purple lights erupted from the insignia moments later.

Blood Lash!

Thick purple chains emerged from the insignia and whipped the monsters within 250 yards. Every attack suppressed the monsters by 5% and drained 5% of their stamina.

Far away from the rest of the group, Violet found a suitable spot to execute her combat techniques. It was time to put the slumber beasts to sleep. She coordinated with Wu Lan to execute ‘Spatial Smash’ on the monster sandwiched between them. The attacks resulted in 4-5 billion damage individually. The two attacked continued on their trajectory and smashed against each other. The space around the monster crumbled, releasing a crackling pitch black spatial tear that amputated its limbs and split the appendages on its tail. The monster was severely crippled and ran to take shelter behind its allies. Wu Lan used the opening to close the distance with Violet who was busy executing ‘Time Freeze’. Wu Lan shattered the frozen space with ‘Time Warp’, wiping over 20% of the slumber beasts’ HP. Rest of the monsters lost 25-35% HP through a single chained attack. They reversed their roles and repeated the combat techniques. Five consecutive combination attacks shredded the monsters to pulp.

Both of them lost over 70% concentration in the process but it didn’t stop them from rushing in to aid Fire Dance who was locked in a bloody conflict with 20 mythic monsters. Fire’s fighting style was eye opener for both of them. Her attacks seemed random and haphazard but somehow managed to connect and land critical hits at the last moment. She was able to calculate the trajectory and movement patterns of each of her targets independently. She was using the target’s blind spots to launch precision attacks with almost 100% critical rate. The attacks that landed on her seemed to pass through her afterimages. It felt like she was physically present and absent at the same time. Violet was awestruck when she realised that Fire had evolved ‘Void Steps’ to such an extent and created her own secret technique based on it. Even she was fooled by the split second manoeuvre between her disappearance and reappearance at the same point after the attacks passed through it.

Rain and Miranda spread out to assist the main force and reserve members break through the barricades and other fortifications. This group of over 500 players was divided into four different teams that were commanded by Yan Tianxing, Black Cloud, Silent Blade and Yi Wumian. Rain instructed Miranda to watch this group and scout for talent. She was to engage only if someone was overwhelmed and needed support. The group fought like a well-oiled war machine, minimizing excessive movements and maximising damage through penetrative strikes. However, these efforts were not enough to impress Miranda. In her opinion a commander should know when to press on, take a calculated risk and change the unit formations depending on the tactical shifts in the battle. A thorough and uniform defensive thrust was a futile manoeuvre against opponents with much higher attributes, HP and stamina pools. There was one group among them that was adapting to the battle dynamics but was hesitant to seize the opportunities, probably fearing that they would wander further away from the other groups.

Rain too was perplexed by the overcautious approach of the main force but ignored the situation since she wasn’t a part of the chain of command. She noticed a blip on her radar and setoff to investigate the matter. A lone assassin had penetrated the inner circle of monsters and was trying to covertly set up magical traps at several strategic locations. The sheer number of monsters and traps this player had evaded, despite being in close proximity with them was mind boggling. Even with ‘invisibility’ active, Rain was having a difficult time moving among the group of monsters despite hiding her life force and mana signature. She was tickled when she realised that monsters responded to killing intent.

“You got some skills kid. Care to introduce yourself?” Rain asked

“Not now lady. Can’t you see I’m busy! Oh shit! How can she see me? Where is she?” the assassin panicked. He wasn’t a part of any of those four teams. He was supposed to return to Starlight Fortress with the flying ships. None of them knew that he was here. He was caught pants down.

“Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone” Rain giggled. She knew this kid was a thrill seeking junkie like herself and fully confident of his skills and strengths.

“What do you want?”

“I came over to tell you that stealth is useless against the 3-eyed monster that’s heading this way. It can see all the traps as well”

“Oh crap! That magic eye beast! Time to change gears. I’ll cut open a path. Get out while you can. You’ll be safe outside with the rest” the youth matched step for step with an oncoming monster, synchronising with its movements to neutralise any ripples in the environment that could lead to proximity detection. Rain was impressed with what she saw. There was not a shade of fear in his eyes upon noticing a monster that was considered to be the bane of assassins, spectral and phantasmal beasts. This was the monster that could track her ‘Nether Crow’ form. She tried multiple times to kill this monster but her attempts were thwarted by its huge HP pool and its camaraderie of superior mythic guards. She wouldn't let go of this chance now that the monster had shown itself without any security detail.

“The name is Sonny Soundless. Make sure you run the moment I attack” the kid blurted, engaging a weird footwork routine to walk sideways like a crab. He knew that the only blind spot of a magic eye beast was 90 degrees to either-side, and only when all the eyes looked in a straight line. He had to hide behind other monsters and bide his time for the perfect opportunity to strike. Rain followed him closely wondering what other stuff he could do.

A blinding light trap went off 200 yards away from the magic eye beast. The sensory overload made it wince and close its eyes for a moment. A moment was all Soundless needed to run in and lodge a dagger right through the beast’s middle eye.

Tier 4 Taboo Skill, Paralytic Stroke!

Thick streams of orange electricity burst through the tip of the dagger and engulfed the magic eye beast. A mammoth 25 billion damage appeared above its head. The residual stun effect gave Soundless ample time to land a few more attacks on the monster

Tier 4 Skill, Cutthroat Cleave!

Tier 3 Taboo Skill, Shadow Split!

Tier 3 Skill, Darkness Slash!

He managed to shave 15% of the level 152 special high mythic monster’s mammoth 250 billion HP in one second. Only the superior mythic monsters in the fortress could match up to it in terms of HP. Soundless knew his free run was over the moment he revealed himself. Hundreds of monsters moved in to intercept and eliminate him.

Kaboom!

Every trap in the central corridor triggered, unleashing elemental carnage, metal shards, poison and deluge on everybody around them. Soundless had purposely planted his traps near the triggering mechanisms of the protective traps setup by monsters, releasing a domino of explosions. He was forced to defend when several shrapnel and poison shards found their way towards him. Chaos ensued and he failed to notice a powerful disintegration beam coming right at him. Magic eye beast had attacked him under the guise of paralysis. Soundless knew it was too late to dodge. He was forced to awkwardly block the attack using both his daggers. The beam shredded the daggers to scrap. The impact of the block flung him in the air like a bullet. He tactfully used a series of aerial manoeuvres to cushion the impact.

“No! Not my epic daggers! Damn! I haven’t even started paying for those” Soundless whined. He quickly swapped into his reserve dark gold set. His resolve never wavered despite the heart rendering loss of epic equipment. It was evident enough from the glow in his eyes that he was just getting started.


	94. Phantom Leap

“Here. These might help” Rain’s voice startled Soundless. He thought she had escaped to safety amidst the chaos he unleashed and regrouped with the rest of the main force outside. He was stunned to find two fragmented legendary paired short swords in his transactions interface.

“Lady I can’t afford them. I can’t pay you back even if I slave myself for 1000 years” he spoke in a dejected tone.

“You can have them if you manage to join my squad. However, you’ll have to kill that magic eye beast within 15 seconds to qualify. Now move! Tick Tock!” Soundless’ face lit up as soon as he swapped into “Kaal’s Past” and “Kaal’s Future”. The sword pair was a rare temporal weapon. The weapons attack trajectory and impact were enhanced with temporal variation, randomly acceleration or dilating the attack without any visible variation in the attack pattern. In experienced hands, blocking its strike without a proper shield was akin to winning a lottery. Only those with inhuman levels of reaction speed and response time had a chance of surviving its assault. He knew he wanted them irrespective of the costs. He was curious about the identity of his mysterious benefactor. Slaying the monster was the fastest path to achieve his objectives.

“Lady! You got yourself a deal! I hope you don’t regret your decision later” he chuckled before adjusting his footwork. He somersaulted to dodge an incoming attack, straightened his body mid-air and cut a ‘chop’ like arc in the direction of the magic eye beast. A sword light shot out at tremendous pace. The monster was knocked back 5 yards before it could attempt to block it. The follow up cut knocked it back by another 25 yards and sent it crashing into the monsters running towards him.

Soundless danced with the monsters, merging with the shadows of their massive frames as he carved a path towards the raging magic eye beast. Faced with another disintegration beam, he used ‘Shadow Steps’ to appear behind the monster and stabbed both the swords into the sides of its neck, in a single cohesive step.

Temporal Fracture!

Three massive damages above 20 billion appeared on the magic eye beast, wiping 25% of its HP and freezing it in time for the next 3 seconds. Soundless didn’t stop to gaga over the damage. An assassin’s explosive power did not lie in a single strike, but a burst of continuous skills.

Tier 3 Taboo Skill, Devil’s Caricature!

Tier 3 Taboo Skill, Abyssal Laceration!

Tier 3 Skill, Spleen Splatter!

“Damn these monsters won’t let me play. I’ll run dry before this beast wakes up” Soundless whined. Monsters surrounded him and attacked him relentlessly. He was shuffling between defensive footwork and offensive skills. However, instead of being disappointed, a wide smile appeared on his face. It was time to unleash his masterstroke. He didn’t mind showing off in front of his future employer.

Secret Combat Technique: Phantom Leap!

Soundless employed a frisky footwork with hopping movements. Every time he leaped over to a new position a phantasmal afterimage took his place. The phantasmal copies engaged with the monsters, dodging and deflecting their attacks, and counterattacking at every opportunity. This forced the monsters to focus on his afterimages, allowing him to surround the frozen beast in preparation of his next move. Swords, axes, spears, claws, arrows and other magical attacks rammed through the phantoms. The attacks were methodically dodged or deflected to strike the magic eye beast from all sides. Soundless used the opportunity to deploy the second set combination attack from his paired swords.

Chop Chop Bang Bang!

Two swords stabbed the beast nine times in 1/10th of a second. Soundless kicked the beast and used the momentum to fly out of the area. Nine explosions ripped through the beast’s body, each resulting in a critical damage in excess of 10 billion. The beast lost 95 billion HP in a single attack. The explosions blew away the afterimages and knocked out the surrounding monsters. Rain was amazed at Soundless’ combat technique. It was like ‘Singularity’ combined with ‘Dark Spirit’. She was impressed by the fact that he stabbed the beast in critical areas instead of going for rapid fire and haphazard strikes. Soundless returned to finish the job a second later.

Nine One One Slash!

Tier 2 Taboo Skill, Point Blank!

Tier 2 Skill, Spine Break!

Tier 2 Skill, Kidney Strike!

Magic eye beast was down to 15% HP after 10 seconds. Soundless knew he was running out of time and skills. The monsters surrounding the beast weren’t helping his cause either. He knew he had to give it his all if he wanted to succeed in his trial.

“Concentration be damned. I am going all out” he mumbled. He clenched his teeth and stabbed the ground with one of the swords.

Flux Domain!

Ripples of time shot out in every direction for 50 yards, disrupting the flow of time and silencing all the monsters within the domain. Random temporal fluctuations increased the cost and complexity of executing combat techniques in the area. Soundless steadied himself and executed his secret technique once more.

Secret Combat Technique: Phantom Leap!

He created five phantasmal afterimages. Three copies were tasked to defend and deflect the attacks while other two assisted him in attacking the beast. Time was of essence and his only option was to abandon all defences and exchange blow for blow with the magic eye beast. He used ‘Wind Steps’ to gain a second of invulnerability and used the afterimages to execute a series of combination skills on the beast.

Tier 3 Combination Skill, Cranial Cleave!

Tier 3 Combination Skill, Split Mirror!

Soundless was dealing over dozens of billions of damage. Two of his afterimages were shattered by the beast's counterattack. His concentration drained like a waterfall in the process. He felt a searing pain erupt deep inside his head. He was tottering on the edge of sanity. He knew he only had enough juice for one final attack. The monster still had over seven billion HP left. He smiled bitterly at his predicament.

“All or nothing” he yelled and coordinated with all the remaining afterimages to launch one final brutal strike.

Tier 2 Combination Skill, Bloody Marathon!

He lost consciousness and collapsed on the magic eye beast moments later, sliding his swords through its body as he fell to the ground. The flux domain broke apart. The monsters rushed in to finish him off.

Five earth elementals manifested around him and blocked the incoming attacks. Rain picked up the drops from the magic eye beast and used ‘Immersion’ to shove Soundless into her temporal retreat. She was in awe of Soundless’ combat standards. Her jaws dropped watching him implement combination skills through his afterimages. The complexity of this feat was notches higher than her own use of illusory copies to cast spells. The arduous amount of control one needed to exert over their body to perform such manoeuvres was outrageously mindboggling. Yet this kid had achieved it through sheer strength of will. Rain recorded the whole battle to learn from it at a later stage. The monster that took away her thunder a while ago was dead. She could use her illusory techniques without a care. A massacre began moments later. She moved on to the inner courtyard where her doppelganger wreaked havoc a while ago.


	95. Realms of Reality

A gruesome sight awaited her at the inner courtyard. All four of her summoned dragons were down to 6-9% HP, battling over thirty thousand level 140+ monsters of which at least 100 were level 160+ high and superior mythic monsters. Rain wondered how these dragons managed to survive for so long. The sheer number of mythic monsters should have overwhelmed them long ago. She was convinced that there was no point in holding back. She cast ‘Handy mode’ and equipped ‘Suparna’s Spear’. She pinched 411,039,674,600 EXP from the experience bank to push herself to level 145. She gained free attribute points from both the weapons in the process. She summoned the void shadow hawk and pumped 1,516,305,146,000 EXP to boost it by 40 levels to level 180. She summoned her doppelganger. Both of them cast ‘Demonify’ to double their attributes and raise themselves to tier 5. They equipped the rings, cast ‘Void Domain’, ‘Teleprompt’ and ‘Invisibility’ and set off to give the monsters a taste of their own medicine.

Tier 4 level 170 void monsters started popping out all over the inner courtyard. Overlapping of domains didn’t increase the quantity of summoned creatures, but it raised their quality and life rating. Rain was startled to find a healthy mix of ferocious beasts and archaic species answer her summons. The mythic monsters were suddenly waylaid by a mix of void serpents, void hawks, void three-eyed wolves, steel blade void rhinos and other void creatures. Rain and her doppelganger returned to the privacy of the central corridor and pooled their HP to heal the dragons. They unfurled six ‘Frozen Hex’ scrolls and peppered the area with ‘Experience Steal’ and ‘Life Theft’ to refurbish the bank and recover their HP loss. Rain was counting on ‘Safer Collaterals’ passive ability to reduce the damage to summoned void monsters.

Rain however wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. There were far too many high and superior mythic monsters in the mix and she could only think of one way to flood them out of the frame. She summoned Wu Lan over and had her teleport all the superior mythic faux saint monsters from deep beneath the tunnels of Ancient Rock City. Though these monsters were 10-15 levels lower than the defenders, their numerical advantage and ability to launch combination attacks skewed the tide of battle. The shadow void hawk soared high above to monitor the battlefield and support them with stealthy sneak attacks. Rain’s doppelganger joined the battlefield. She stayed behind to guard the entrance. The defenders were decisively overwhelmed despite their huge numbers, and were forced on the defensive.

. . . .

The main force slayed the monsters on the outer corridors, shattered the barricades and broke through the defensive lines a few minutes later.

“Team 2 and 4 go and assist the guild leader. Assassins explore the area for traps. Find out who did this” Yan Tianxing commanded upon finding the central corridor littered with bodies. The loot had been picked clean. The assassins toiled around for a while and made a shocking discovery.

“Boss Tianxing. I found these scrap daggers. I remember lending them to Soundless for his tier 4 trial”

“Brother Peach Blossom is correct. Soundless was working on these traps on his way here” a cloaked assassin concurred after examining the debris on the floor.

“Interesting! Find him and ask him to see me later. Team 1 will follow me to the inner courtyard. Team 3 clear and secure this corridor and join us later” Tianxing commanded. It was impossible for an assassin to cause so much damage. It had to be a magical class to scald and scar the bodies to such an extent.

“All of you should go and assist your friends outside. None of you will last more than five seconds inside the inner courtyard” A deep voice alerted them. They turned around to look at the creepy NPC who was haunting them all this while. She saved Silent Blade and Yi Wumian’s teams from certain annihilation earlier. Miranda was busy drawing another insignia on the ground when thundering explosions erupted over 1000 yards ahead of them. A thick crimson energy barrier appeared before them and blocked their path. She didn’t give a damn about the team’s displeasure at her actions. She was under instructions to not let anyone through. She drew another insignia on the ground and disappeared from the scene the moment she placed her hands on the glowing seal. Players from Team 1 and 3 looked at each other in confusion, wondering what kind of power the lady wielded to disappear without any spatial fluctuations.

“I can’t figure out if she is protecting us or keeping us here or both. I agree with her words though. There is no advantage in dividing our forces” Blackie broke his silence.

“My thoughts exactly. Let’s kill all the monsters outside and return with full force” Yan Tianxing ordered everyone to turn around.

. . . .

The barrier had disappeared when they returned fifteen minutes later. They were flabbergasted at the sight of two ladies and four dragons fighting with 20 superior mythic monsters. The ‘nice one’ was supporting the ‘creepy one’ in engaging the last of the defenders. The courtyard was littered with loot but there were no bodies. The two dragons flew in to assist in the carnage. The rest looked towards their guild leader to issue the command.

Wu Lan was tickled when she realised that the phantom dimension of their secret base could be accessed through a simple teleportation spell. This dimension operated like an other-world allowing her to jump from eastern to western continent without wasting her mana and concentration on an over tier gate spell with a long cooldown. A minute into the battle Wu Lan teleported the 800,000 faux saint monsters from their base to assist the void beasts and their superior mythic brethren to drown and overwhelm the defenders and gorge on the bodies of the fallen. Their ravenous appetite wiped the courtyard clean in a matter of minutes. All the monsters were returned to the secret hideout a few seconds after the battle in the outer courtyard came to an end.

Black Flame was frozen stiff at the sight of the battle ahead of him. He was so deeply absorbed that it felt like his soul was somewhere else and only his lifeless body remained on the scene. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath 60 seconds later.

“Guild leader! Did you have another breakthrough?” Violet asked curiously.

“Something like that. Go finish the fight we have better things to do later” Black Flame achieved sudden enlightenment while watching Miranda fight. He broke through the ‘Realms of Ascension’ and knocked the doors of ‘Realms of Reality’. He gained key insights into his own combat techniques and resolved to strengthen them further.

They took control of the Star-Crossed Fortress 30 minutes later. Black Flame reached level 142. Violet reached level 141. Rest of the main force was tottering around level 135-138. Xenelia breached level 136. She finally had enough EXP to upgrade all her bloodline skills by 10 minor ranks and stay above level 130. She would be in the perfect position to challenge her God mode tier 4 trial if she could max her bloodline skills by another 2 minor ranks.

. . . .

Multiple guilds sent their representatives to investigate the events in Star Valley. Only thing they could ascertain so far was that Commander Xenelia from Blood Raider Adventurer Team, was the only one who knew the identity of the player controlling the fortress. Star-Crossed Fortress could be a great asset towards the upcoming abyssal crusades. Many first rate and super first rate guilds dispatched their armies to take over the fortress from its current owners. They had 48 hours to attack and take over the fortress before its defensive barrier recovered and shattered their dreams forever. Even Netherworld Empire, Divine Tribe and Azure were mulling a joint assault over the fortress. They wanted to appraise guild leader Black Flame of their plans and seek his aid the moment he finished his marathon meeting in the Starlight Fortress.

Xenelia caught wind of the happenings outside and started laughing like a maniac. She wasn’t amused that Miracle posted a bounty on her head without disclosing any reasons for the same. She informed Black Flame of the situation outside and bid goodbyes.

“Guild leader, why were so many superior mythic monsters guarding this fortress?” Aqua Rose asked. A medium fortress shouldn’t have been so difficult to conquer. Her skills and combat standards were thoroughly challenged throughout the conquest. She was surrounded by four superior mythic monsters and managed to survive their assault for a few minutes with utmost difficulty. She felt her combat standards and survivability improve by a small margin after being thrown into a den of hungry lions.

“Weren’t you guys itching to test out your tier 4 strength?” Black Flame chuckled. His words humbled the entire main force. They had been too self-absorbed and haughtily arrogant after reaching tier 4. They understood fully well that they stood no chance without the aid of the six dragons and that creepy NPC lady. The road only got tougher after they reached this milestone. The difference between a level 120 mythic and a level 150 mythic was of astronomical proportions. They had to challenge and shatter their own limits if they wanted to progress further.

“Are we going to challenge the legacy gate next?” Fire asked

“We’ll need at least three days to complete the 7-star God mode trial this legacy gate demands. I doubt we have 10 people who are strong enough to unlock the bronze seal. We should focus on increasing our strength before we attempt the trial. We are lucky that this fortress has sufficient defensive structures to last us for a while” Black Flame explained. He was keen to uncover the secrets this fortress was hiding. He felt a familiar energy lingering in the inner courtyard a while ago. The sheer number of drops indicated the presence of at least 50 superior mythic monsters. There had to be something extravagant that this fortress offered to attract so many of them. However, right now he needed to return to Starlight Fortress and take control of the storm brewing outside.


	96. Little Games

“Lady Miranda. This victory was only possible through your support and guidance. Could I leave this fortress and these fighters under your care for the next three days? I hope they can learn something from you and improve their capabilities” Black Flame knew that the only way to raise their combat standards was to brute force them out of their shells. A regimental and titled general was his best hope to put them through the ringer and prepare them for the legacy gate trial and the upcoming abyssal invasion.

“This group needs a lot of work. I am not sure if they will survive three days with me. I’ll give them three chances to prove themselves. They will be thrown into the pits if they disappoint me” Miranda replied in a stoic voice. The players shivered at those words. They hoped their guild leader would show them some mercy since the NPC wouldn’t.

“Do with them as you please. They must break through their limits if they hope to become stronger” Black Flame affirmed. Everybody almost shit in their pants when they heard those words. They solemnly prepared to survive hell for the next three days.

Black Flame, Violet, Rain and Wu Lan returned to the conference room in Starlight Fortress after putting a gag order on the entire days’ events. News of this fortress being captured had destabilised the balance of power in the entire western continent. Their identities had to be kept a secret until Zero Wing managed to milk this opportunity to influence and secure the aid and assistance of their partners and other neutral parties.

Miranda didn’t waste any time in enforcing her control over the beleaguered players. She dissolved the teams and regrouped the 560 main force and reserve members into 16 different teams. Half of these teams were given a mysterious blood orb. Seniority, title, rank, class and race meant nothing to her. Her assessment of their capabilities determined their role in the team. Blackie was scared of being dropped into oblivion. His jaws dropped when he was the only one among the four team captains to be retained as a captain. The teams were assigned various tasks including manning the defensive towers, patrol duty etc. to familiarize themselves with the various sections of the fortress. These teams were to perform a task for 15 minutes and swap their duties with another team. Her instructions were direct, clear and concise.

“Everybody gathered here is tier 4 ranked. You should be proud of getting this far. However, do not get too carried away since this is the farthest more than 95% of you will ever get. You don’t stand a chance to advance further unless you improve your combat standards by 30 to 40%. Nobody is allowed to equip anything beyond Bronze rank for the next three days. You are forbidden from executing any skill or spell offered by your equipment. The challenges you face must be met and mitigated using the skills and combat techniques that you have learnt. If you die in the process, then so be it! Everybody move out” Miranda commanded.

Everybody panicked upon hearing those words. They quickly swapped out of their equipment. There were enough high level common and bronze level equipment pieces in the drops from the monsters. Nobody wanted to piss off this creepy lady and earn her ire. Tianxing, Luofei, Aqua and Fire were thoroughly confused when they were not assigned any teams or roles. They were stunned when their roles were revealed two hours later.

. . . .

Everybody skipped a beat when they saw Violet emerge from the conference room. They had been waiting patiently for almost two hours, wondering what was so important that was keeping Zero Wing busy at this hour of turmoil. Those familiar with the affairs of the fortress were startled to see Violet donning a black cloak. She destroyed a city the last time she was seen in one.

“Commander Rhapsody. Guild leader wishes to see you now”. Violet could sense the restlessness in the representatives gathered outside the conference room.

“Boss Violet. We all wish to meet guild leader Black Flame for an urgent matter. Every minute we wait here someone else gains ground” a representative from Unsung Heroes spoke politely. Quite a few representatives from guilds friendly to Zero Wing’s partners had arrived at Starlight Fortress seeking logistics aid towards the abyssal invasion. Capture of Star-Crossed Fortress shifted the focus and balance.

“Vice leader Goldy. I apologise for keeping you guys waiting. Guild leader wishes to discuss the situation involving Star-Crossed Fortress with our trade partners before shaping our stand”. Various representatives present in the area were stunned by those professional and polite words. They were half expecting Violet to burst into a fit of rage and chastise the representative from a second rate guild. The one sided beating she unleashed on Mythology a day ago was fresh on their minds.

“Commander Fithalia, Uncle Long. Guild leader wishes to see you now” Violet spoke after checking her communicator.

“Commander Rampant Blade, could you inform all the guild members to report to training room 3 in 15 minutes?” Violet stated before returning to the conference room. That command sent ripples of excitement through every representative’s heart. Zero Wing was definitely making a move. Rampant Blade left to gather 1000 of 1400 Dark God Legion members and another 100+ core members who managed to reach Starlight Fortress through various trans-dimensional passages. He expected more to arrive before the abyssal invasion started.

. . . .

“Let’s start since everyone is here. Convince me that that resource starved fortress is worth the trouble!” Black Flame demanded. The discussion continued for next 10 minutes with each guild representative presenting power packed arguments to bolster their case. Rain played the devil’s advocate and shredded most of these arguments, pushing them to raise the stakes even higher. She fiddled with the signet ring to figure out the inside story. She was pleasantly surprised to learn that these powers were petitioning Black Flame since they firmly believed that only Zero Wing was strong enough to wrest control of the fortress from the ‘demonic other-worldly power’ that slayed the guardian to claim the Lord’s bounty. These guilds were scared of letting such a powerful force take root in the western continent and were considering an all-out unified assault on the fortress.

“Commander Fithalia. You mentioned someone saw these demonic players and knows their identity. I am amazed you guys posted a bounty on that player instead of offering a reward to disclose this information. Don’t you guys agree that a sizeable reward works better than a bounty when we are racing against time?” Rain quipped. This sudden turn stumped Black Flame. He was wondering whether Xenelia backstabbed him and made a deal with some shady parties. Rain’s twist convinced him that this was one of her little games all along. He decided to play along. Violet and Wu Lan were struggling to hold their laughter.

“That’s an excellent suggestion. Rather than waste time and effort on locating this player we could just request her to reveal the information by offering an irresistible reward” Stinging Rhapsody concurred.

“I have a feeling she would respond positively if we could convince Miracle to grant her amnesty. However, please don’t let them know we made this suggestion. You know our relationship with that guild in the eastern continent is not a pleasant one” Violet suggested, trying very hard not to laugh.

“It’s settled then. If that lady reveals this information within the next 24 hours we’ll put our full weight behind this effort. It also gives us time to move some more of our forces over and conclude the private auctions in White River City peacefully” Black Flame summarised.

“Oh yes. None of you guys are allowed to miss the auction tomorrow. I’ll be disappointed if you guys don’t show up” Violet chimed in with a splash of cuteness.

“We’re not so foolish to miss such a golden opportunity. Commander Rush is hitching a ride with us. You can join us as well Commander Fithalia” Long Wushang thanked everybody for their understanding. Zero Wing’s stand was logical enough. Rushing in blindly would only result in a disaster.

“Guild leader, we have another set of representatives waiting outside. Shall I call them in?” Violet inquired.

“Sure! Let’s find out what they have for us”

. . . .


	97. School of Hard Knocks

The name “Commander Xenelia” was suddenly famous across the entire western continent. Every guild was trying to reach out to her to gain access to the information she held. One by one the bounties on her head were retracted and replaced by rewards. The amount steadily grew to 580,000 gold coins with various guilds joining hands to pool funds. Miracle and other guilds granted her full pardon and amnesty for her notoriety if she made a full disclosure within the next 24 hours. Everyone found the deadline reasonable since it allowed them sufficient time to gather and deploy millions of troops and thousands of war weapons to mount a joint assault.

It was understood that her reward would become the new bounty on her head if she refused to divulge the information or tried to double cross the parties involved. Her refusal would make her the public enemy of all guilds in the western empire. Nobody questioned why Zero Wing was missing from the joint declaration. That guild wasn’t a major stakeholder in the western continent.

. . . .

A shadow descended on a group of cloaked players. They were quick to fall into a defensive formation to engage and neutralise the threat. It proved futile when a searing current of dark lightning struck them from behind, charring and stunning them. The few moments they took to reorient themselves were enough for the shadow to cleave through their formation and assassinate their leader. The rest of the group fell seven seconds later.

“I hate this job”

“Me too but it’s necessary. Let’s head back. We’ve met our kill count”

. . . .

240 cloaked players were gathered in a room. They cursed their fates while mulling over the punishment they would be meted out. A giant screen displayed seven major columns, each split into three minor columns displaying player, role and a count next to it. Blackie was shivering once again. His score was the lowest among the lot. His teammates Cola, Flying Shadow and Su Qianliu scored slightly better than him. Other team members were only marginally better than them. His team had the least number of members and almost everybody had scored poorly. They knew they had screwed up big time on the assignment given to them. They never expected to be the worst performers among all the teams. 40 more players emerged from a corner with their heads hanging in shame. Another major column was added to the sheet with information about the latest group. Everybody hoped they would be given another chance to improve their performance and attempt a higher score.

“I saw one of you take down a special high mythic monster all by himself despite being surrounded by dozens of mythic monsters. I thought you all shared the same hunger and conviction. I was wrong! You all have been assigned a number. That’s how much you’ll need to improve if you ever wish to move past tier 4” a thundering voice bellowed. The smug fellow who top scored with 68 points started tearing his hair off and collapsed on the floor. Blackie dropped to the floor as well, panting fiercely to calm his heartbeat that almost sounded like an assault rifle. He had the smallest 2-digit number to overcome. He never slacked off despite spending most of the day managing the workshop and the training facility. He trained extensively through the virtual platforms to improve his combat standards, speed and reaction time. While he couldn’t achieve 100% completion rate in his tier 4 challenge, he strove hard to learn a tier 4 topic with 100% completion rate, unlocking a peak tier 4 core in the process.

“Is that creepy lady comparing us to guild leader? This is so unfair!”

“Can’t blame her. Didn’t we all join Zero Wing to become strong like him? She is right to expect more from us. We owe it to our guild to get stronger”

“That’s true but catching up with guild leader is like chasing a race car on a bicycle”

Whispers and murmurs reverberated throughout the hall. Very few in the group deduced that Miranda was speaking about someone else. None of them encountered any special high mythic monster in the fortress. Yan Tienxing was the only one with a clear idea of the identity of the player she mentioned. He was the only one privy to how hard Soundless trained and his destitute financial situation. He was proud to have taken him under his wings and groom and sharpen his astonishing talent. He searched every nook and cranny of the fortress to look for him but found nothing but monsters lurking in the shadows. Luofei and him slayed hundreds of monsters in their search and uncovered several secret rooms in the process. The thundering voice returned to silence them all.

“I said I’ll give you three chances. You all have forfeited one already. I’ll walk you through the glaring issues with your techniques. Here you’ll train like never before. I hope you strive harder to benefit the most from the other two chances and maximise your growth. If you don’t then you’ll lose everything”. A series of recordings played on the giant screen with Miranda detailing the mistakes the teams and individuals committed and offered broad pointers to help mitigate their shortcomings. A rigorous training session followed that ended with all 280 players landing in a body pile, thoroughly drained of stamina, concentration and mana. Miranda powered a rejuvenation hex to bring them back to fighting form. They were given 30 minutes to reflect on the choices they made and think of ways to improve their combat standards.

Miranda watched from above as 280 players collaborated to survive a brutal assault from four exceptionally skilled masked fighters in the next training session. Less than 100 players stood after the first 30 minutes. Miranda stopped the training and recalled two of the masked fighters. She wanted to analyse these 90 odd people in greater detail. She was pleasantly surprised when 58 people survived the next 30 minutes, each showing minor improvements in their combat standards. She stopped the fight again and dived in herself. Less than 30 people held their ground after 5 minutes. They too perished within the next 5 minutes.

The third training session was the quickest and most brutal of all. Miranda allocated everybody a 10x10 yards area and powered a large scale destruction spell over them. They had to survive 45 seconds within their allocated zones. The ruin powered spell ensured that their stamina drained faster than usual if they took a hit. Only 20 people managed to survive the first 30 seconds. Nobody lasted the full duration of the spell.

The ruthless and rigorous grilling continued for 12 hours. It only stopped when the players were too drained to continue and started showing signs of mental retardation due to the extreme levels of stress.

The other eight teams guarded over the fortress in the meantime. Armies of a first rate guild arrived near the gates of the fortress. They dispersed quickly after a single warning shot from the mutated death fire towers broke through the defensive barrier protecting their siege weapons and vaporised them. They tried to explore the area through flight mounts but were forced to tuck their tails and run when a single shot from a thunder ballista decapitated one of the flight mounts and its rider. They established a perimeter 3000 yards outside the fortress and waited for reinforcements.

The teams were asked to pass on the blood orb that reduced their death penalty by 75% to the teams defending the fortress. Other eight teams were put through a similar exercise, thoroughly humbling and draining them in the process. Most of the main force developed a mortal fear of the blood orb after the first day. Everybody managed to shave their distance from tier 5 by at least one point. It cost them 2 levels. They had to survive two more days of torture to graduate from the school of hard knocks.

. . . .

“That went well. I had no idea that the guilds in Silver Pine Kingdom look so favourably towards us”

“You should thank vice leader Violet for liberating them from Mythology’s slavery. They can finally breathe in fresh air instead of living on scraps” Rain chirped. She loved making Violet blush.

“Guild leader. The dark god legion and rest of reserves are assembled in the training room. Do you have any orders for them?” Violet spoke sheepishly, biting her lips.

“Aren’t you guys curious about the Lord’s bounty that everyone is talking about?” Black Flame chuckled. He placed a dark orb on the table. The orb floated in its own space, pulsating with dense demonic energy, piquing everybody’s curiosity.


	98. Forgotten Books and Bibles

“Lord’s Legion of Darkness!” Rain was shocked at the orb’s description. This was the Lord of Destruction’s personal guard legion. Every member of this legion was an exceptional fighter with a higher life rating than normal demons. Lord of Destruction had further enhanced this legion with ‘Light of Darkness’ from the ‘Bible of Darkness’.

“We have 4000 slots for Legionnaires, 20 slots for Captains, two Colonels and one General. Every legionary starts as a Baron. Those who are blessed with darkness from the bible will be upgraded by one rank. They also stand a chance to become High Demons at tier 5 if they are able to raise their status to ‘Demon Count’ before their tier challenge” Black Flame gave off a rare fleeting smile to further wow his captive audience whose jaws dropped at the revelation. This however was easier said than done since every legionary was required to challenge the orb’s trial and achieve a desired rank to succeed. He always wondered how the ‘Bible of Darkness’ would help him build an army of powerful demons. The orb in his hands had the power to transform the entire Dark God Legion into an army of demon nobles.

“That’s sad since we only have 1500 players with ‘Power of Darkness’” Violet observed.

“I have overlooked this one for far too long. Quite a few important tasks have been collecting dust for a while. At least now I have enough motivation to look for the missing fragments and maximise the number of slots” Black Flame sighed. This orb could open doors to possibilities beyond his dreams. The guild could gain over 4000 attempts to challenge the ‘World Summit’ and claim the ‘God crystals’ and other valuables they needed desperately. That place was heaven for demon nobles. For the first time in the game he had a clear idea of how huge his target was. The mysterious shrine on Demon’s island was a possible location to look for the bible fragment. Broken Canyon was currently out of his reach. He had to settle his debt with Demon God Atlock’s doppelganger and rid himself of the bounty on his head, otherwise he would become a glaring beacon of light in that forbidden land of darkness. There was a chance he could resolve it diplomatically due to another item he received as an accreditation of his feat.

‘Mark of the Lord’ was a legendary title that awarded him the status of an honorary Demon King. This was the main reason why multiple demonic entities wished to slay the mirage beast. Any demon holding this title could leapfrog into a Demon King without facing the tribulations of various ranks. The only way to become a Demon King was through the Lord’s blessings. None had managed to become one for thousands of years. He planned to make full use of it to commission quests and grant contribution points to his demon nobles. This title passively boosted the Bible of Darkness’s ‘Demon Ruler’ skill by an additional 20%, giving him 30% chance to control a demonic entity up to Tier 5. Any demon summoned using the bible would do his bidding without questioning his authority. Momentary slavery to a lesser being was nothing compared to eternal ire of the Lord. Black Flame tested this aspect by summoning a Tier 5 one winged battle demon during the conquest of the fortress.

“I can give up my slot. Power of darkness clashes with my bloodline” Violet offered. She had outgrown the benefits this berserk skill provided.

“There is no rush. Let’s see how the Dark Gods Legion performs. You’ll administer the trial after they sign a strict confidentiality agreement and agree to change their race to demon players. We have already cashed in a lot of favours to get them here. Those who refuse or fail to clear the trial will forfeit their slot. They have to step up and take charge of the city we are constructing in the western continent. It’s best if they develop here and use the demonic energies to bolster their strength”.

“I’ll see them now and get a sense of their intentions. I am sure they are as committed to the guild as the guild is invested in them” Violet said before leaving the room.

“Rain. There is something on your mind. Speak freely”

“There are some tasks that I need to perform covertly and I need the guild’s assistance. I wish to borrow some players from the main and reserve force to commission a squad for a mix of personal and guild missions. I’ll equip and compensate them to the best of my capability” Rain stated. She had an option to commission quests through War God’s Temple but that would definitely raise eyebrows from others who had made it their life’s mission to become functionaries of the temple. An internal strike force within the guild was a win-win for both sides.

“How many people you need and what kind of tasks you require them to perform”

“My squad will have 10 core and 5 reserve members. Here is the list of candidates I wish to recruit. This is not a permanent commission but it would be good if I can get the same team for future missions as well. My first quest involves capturing some specific types of soul eaters for a confidential project. There is a city I wish to explore as well” Rain passed him a parchment with the name and positions of the squad members. Black Flame gasped at the list in amazement. There was something on the sheet that tickled him but he kept his outwardly calm appearance.

“Interesting! That explains why Miranda was studying that group so intently. Why did you choose these people and which city you wish to explore?”

“Hunger to learn, situational awareness and adaptability to change. These people are likely to benefit the most from Miranda’s sessions. The squad’s name reflects the covert nature of their work. This pass is all I know about the city that I wish to explore. I have enough to bring 20 people with me” Rain explained. Black Flame couldn’t hide his astonishment upon noticing a pass to Sin City.

“I am curious about this city. Could I join in as well?” He hadn’t even heard a whisper of this name in his previous life.

“Yeah! That would be awesome!” Rain pumped her fists. The smile on her face was mesmerising enough to throw Black Flame back into memory lane. He could never dismiss this overbearing sense of familiarity with Thoughtful Rain. Her identity slipped his mind despite his boundless brain activity that allowed him to recall even the smallest fragment of the past. She felt familiar, but he did not know why. He couldn’t dismiss the possibility of his memories being edited prior to his reincarnation. He held back the urge to ask Rain about her real identity. He’d be breaking a promise if he did that. He decided not to dwell on those thoughts any longer.

“If that’s all then I’d like to reimburse the amounts you paid for the city construction. I’ll pass you the rest of the magic crystals later since I don’t have that many with me right now. The guild will cover the expenses towards maintaining the knight’s division and other maintenance costs. I’d like to offer you 30% of the city’s profits. This is on top of the 10% you receive from Zero Wing” Black Flame offered. He wouldn’t have bothered offering more than 20% if Rain were an outsider. However, this city was possible entirely because of Rain’s efforts. It was obvious that her future contributions would bring more riches and glory to the guild. Rain received a refund of 3.2 million gold coins and 1 million magic crystals. She was required to foot the bill for the recruitment of the knight's division. Gearing up, upgrade and upkeep would fall on the guild. 

“Thank you Guild Leader! I would like to exchange the rest of magic crystals with mana stones of equivalent value. I also wish to seek your guidance on another matter. Do you know how to resurrect an NPC?”

“It’s fairly simple if you have access to their body or if they died within the last 3 days. It gets more expensive with every day of delay after that. I guess you already know that”

“I need to revive someone who died over 1,500 years ago. All I have is a power core” Rain’s request stumped Black Flame. This was ridiculous, outrageous and a possibly impossible task.

“I am not sure. However, I have heard rumours that a fully restored ‘Book of Undying’ can help you with that. You’ll have to gather and combine all the 13 volumes of the book. I have one such volume and I can offer you clues about five more. Another method is to locate the author of that book, Danasius ‘The Undying’, and get him to resurrect the NPC. That fellow was sealed away during the war. Nobody has a clue about his current location. There is a high chance you’ll earn the wrath of Gods if you undertake the second approach” Black Flame explained. Those words got Rain thinking.

“It seems that I’ll have to cross paths with the God of Thunder” Rain muttered. The uncanny similarity between her passive title and the book couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Impossible! He died a long time ago in the Sea of Death. Why would you presume he is still alive?”

“Because he is ‘Undying’! If this Danasius guy you speak of was ‘undying’ as well then there is a chance they are the same person. Or someone who absorbed his powers” Rain clarified

“Interesting! You may find the information you need inside the Thunder Temple within the Thunder God’s secret lands. You’ll need a pass to enter the temple lands and will be suppressed by two tiers the moment you step inside” Black Flame warned.

“Both conditions do not apply to me. I go wherever I want. I just need the coordinates. I’ll head there as soon as the abyssal invasion is under control” Rain’s words stunned Black Flame. He was having trouble getting a handle on Rain’s capabilities throughout the day. She exceeded his expectations far too many times. It felt like he was looking at someone else altogether. Just what was her deal?


	99. Crawling out of Shadows

“Guild leader. All 1000 members of the dark gold legion who are gathered here have signed the strict confidentiality agreement. 200 players who failed to clear their Tier 4 challenge have offered to give up their slots. Should I start the trials?” Violet reported. She was happy that everybody understood their responsibilities. The competition in this group was much more intense than the main force. Gaining an entry slot was considered to be a child’s play compared to maintaining their position within the team due to the stringent contribution growth and continuous improvement requirements.

“Get them to start immediately. Commanders Rampant Blade and Taciturn Goose will undertake trials for the captain rank. Minor Wind, Flying Shadow, Shu Qianliu and Sentimental Memories will do the same later” Black Flame commanded. Violet giggled at the mention of those names. The titled ‘demon generals’ were being demoted to ‘demon captains’ and it tickled her.

“Guild leader, who will you pick to command them?” Rain asked.

“Yan Tianxing is best suited for this task. However, I have doubts he or Luofei will agree to change their race”

“How about Zhao Yueru?” Violet asked curiously. Rain had a wide smile on her face upon hearing that name. That demon incarnate was a perfect fit for the job.

“I’ll consult with Snow and Tianxing before making a decision” Black Flame concluded. Yueru was monstrously strong but he wasn’t convinced about her leadership abilities. She could be groomed with the help of Snow and Tianxing. He realised that one of the demon generals was already on the list Rain provided and pondered over her fate. He took another look at the list she compiled.

Shadow

  1. Black Cloud [Captain] [Cursemancer, Core]
  2. Sonny Soundless [Assassin, Core]
  3. Turtledove [Guardian Knight, Core]
  4. Silent Blade [Berserker, Core]
  5. Twelve Swords [Demonblade Knight, Core]
  6. Seven Light [Swordsman, Core]
  7. Graceful Moon [Summoner, Core]
  8. Snow Goose [Cleric, Core]
  9. Su Qianliu [Elementalist, Core]
  10. Snapping Turtle [Ranger, Core]
  11. Remnant Cloud [Shield Warrior, Reserve]
  12. Silver Light [Cleric, Reserve]
  13. Pink Guava [Ranger, Reserve]
  14. Stubborn Bone [Berserker, Reserve]
  15. Orange Pearl [Elementalist, Reserve]



While everybody was exceptionally talented, most of the core group lacked confidence in their own abilities. Even though it kept them hungry and earnest, it was the biggest hurdle in their path. This group was susceptible to breaking down under intense pressure, unless they had someone strong and capable to look up to, to constantly reinforce their self-belief. He wondered if Miranda would plug that gaping hole. It was ironic that the reserve members were a lot stronger and had a much more stable disposition than the core group. These players helmed various adventurer teams prior to joining Zero Wing.

“This core group needs some work to get them in shape. Why didn’t you pick Snow, Aqua or Fire to lead them?”

“It’s time they crawl out of shadows and learn to take command of their lives. They’ll never make it to tier 5 if we keep hand holding them. I trust Miranda to crack them open. They will progress only when they face their fears and conquer them” Rain explained. Black Flame was thrilled to hear those words.

. . . .

The final day of Candlelight Commerce auctions saw a mammoth gathering of members and partner entities. Nobody wanted to miss the opportunity to grab mana rebound shields, summoning scrolls and whatever new item Melancholic Smile promised to introduce.

The summoning scrolls were the first items to be auctioned. The bidding frenzy ensured that all the 12 packs on offer sold above 31,000 gold. The members were delighted when 100 level 140 set equipment were offered in the auction. Those who were sulking at the lost opportunity after the 50th set was sold went all out to grab one when the next series of sets was offered. Each set sold at a higher price than its predecessor, yielding an average of 34,000 gold per set. 200 level 140 dark gold equipment pieces fetched between 3000 and 8000 gold coins. Candlelight made over million gold coins in commissions from sales of summoning scrolls and set equipment.

Melancholic Smile was having a headache controlling the crowds that behaved like mobs out for blood. The knight squad was called in a few times to resolve conflicts and eject the offending parties out of Stone Forest City. The crowds found their voices again when mana rebound shields were offered in the auction. Members who purchased them a day ago reported up to 20% increase in their grinding speed when all the three kits were plugged in. Smile was forced to change her strategy and package the shields in packs of three and limit the sales to one pack per member to maintain order. The new strategy worked wonders as the members were a lot more relaxed since they would either avail full benefits or none at all. These packs sold for 30-40% premium over their selling price a day ago.

“Ladies and Gentlemen. We finally move on to the last batch of items. Allow me to introduce the latest product offering from Candlelight. Level 135 Spitfire Booster Shoe Kit! Now everybody can fly!” Smile’s words set the crowd abuzz. Despite its lofty claims, the shoe kit could be attached to any kind of shoes for some mediocre attribute gain, a 10% movement speed gain, and it allowed flight using mana crystals as fuel. While it was an expensive flight option it was worth every penny when escaping or giving chase. Burning mana crystals was cheaper than losing a level and equipment at this stage of the game. The shoe kit came in fine gold and dark gold flavours. The dark gold version boasted of ‘spitfire missile’ aerial assault skill that was powered by magic crystals as well. The shoe kit flew off the shelves as everybody saw them as a must have tool for their tier 4 challenge. The timing of this product launch was heavenly.

Rain earned 3,832,600 gold coins after deduction of service charge and restoration fees from the sales during the auction. She received another 12,800,000 gold coins after 555 level 140 equipment sets and 35 gift sets were exchanged by guild members using GCPs. This transaction could have bankrupted most first rate guilds at this stage of the game. Zero Wing didn’t manage to escape without consequences either. Almost 70% of the guild’s net GCPs and 100% of its collateral deposits were wiped clean. Zero Wing couldn’t issue any more GCPs until it paid back the balance and restored its collateral deposits equal to 75% of its current GCP float.

Melancholic Smile factored in such an eventuality while deciding upon the ratio of sets to be offered for auction. Candlelight earned enough money through commissions to cushion the impact of gold drain due to GCPs. She however got a shock when Black Flame used his GCPs to reserve all the fragmented legendary and epic pieces. She got a bigger shock when Rain used her GCPs to reserve 16 of the 32 epic set equipment. 10 more epic sets were reserved by the various legion commanders, city magistrates and other prominent members. Two epic sets were marked as gifts for Commander Rush and Zen!

All her plans were thrown for a toss. She didn’t have enough gold to service these requests, nor equipment to auction, to raise funds. She was at her wits end, trying to figure a way to bail the guild out of its liquidity crisis. Furthermore, Youlan was breathing down her neck, petitioning for funds for the reconstruction of Ancient Rock City at a vantage point near a resource-rich area identified by her scouts.

The frenzy over the grand auction had grown to mind boggling levels and Melancholic was panicking after all her star items were snapped up by Black Flame. She held the 80 Tier 4 summoning scrolls close to her chest fearing someone might learn of them and rob her of the chance to auction them. She still had 300 level 140 dark gold set equipment to equip an entire legion and four epic set equipment. She had a sliver of hope when Cocoa accidently produced an epic ranked mana rebound shield, burning her entire forging room down in the process. However, she wasn’t able to repeat the feat in dozens of successive tries. The final straw came when Black Flame withdrew 3.2 million gold coins without notifying her, wiping the entire stash of earnings over the last 4 days. The lifeline she depended upon to bridge the cashflow issues, had vanished without a trace.

She dug herself deep inside the meditation room screaming, pulling her hair out, and smashing anything she could lay her hands on. She calmed down after exhausting herself and sat down to evaluate the options before her. She was striving to figure out a way to get the guild out of a potential financial and public relationship disaster when she felt her communicator ring.

“Miss Smile, why are you sulking?” Rain giggled. The stress and weariness on Melancholic’s face gave way to a faint smile upon seeing a familiar face. She vented for a while before calming down. She had no idea that the person she hung out to dry was seated next to Rain. Luckily this was a private call. Rain tried to cheer her up before getting down to business.

“Are you in a mood to auction some prime real-estate?” Melancholic’s eyes glowed upon hearing those words. She almost fell off the cushions when Rain switched the display to an illusory projection of a city shaped like a giant pine cone. She was fixated on a 70-storey tall Candlelight Commerce building that stood among the other skyscrapers.

. . . .

Rain appraised Black Flame on her discussion with Melancholic Smile and the dire situation the guild found itself in in the short term.

“Didn’t you say no more hand holding? She’s been through worse. She’ll figure something out” he chuckled. Rain could only sigh at the response.

“However, we still have over 20 hours to find something to cheer her up. Let’s go explore this demonic treasure trial that Demon God Atlock has so generously rewarded us with?” Black Flame chuckled at the irony.

“All 1000 legionaries have started their trial. Commanders Blade and Goose will have to wait for the next batch” Violet reported

“Leave the trial administration to Commanders Blade and Goose. We are going on a fun trip”

Violet handed over the administration rights and instructed the two commanders that nobody was allowed to enter or leave the training room until all the 1000 legion members emerged from their trial. She delegated the command of the fortress to Fithalia. They activated a treasure scroll in full public view inside the fortress courtyard, and disappeared in a flash.

. . . .


	100. Junghorrah’s Jukebox

“Dang! Where are we?” Rain felt a faint power ripple through her body. All attribute bonuses and active skills from equipment were greyed out. It felt like a custom silence domain. Luckily passive skills, affinity skills and all skills from her passive titles were still available. She was spooked to find out that she was all alone, locked inside a 10x10 yard prison cell. She recovered quickly and checked her team status. Everybody was still alive and most likely locked in a cell of their own. A series of system prompts caught her attention.

System: You have activated “Demon King Junghorrah’s Jukebox”. You will receive 10 demonic gold coins for arriving here through a trial treasure scroll. Wager a certain number of gold coins, up to a maximum of 500 gold, to activate a challenge. You’ll earn 10 times the gold if you win the challenge. You’ll be kicked out if you forfeit all your gold or lose three challenges. You can leave the jukebox any time after winning 10 challenges. Death penalty will be forcefully reduced to 25% EXP loss, for the first two deaths. You lose two levels and suffer a 25% weakened state for three days if you die the third time. Your challenge will end if you fail any trial beyond the 10th attempt.

System: All forms of teleportation and flight are banned. Communication with the outside world is not allowed.

System: Choose the amount of gold to wager.

“Damn these gamblers!” Rain sighed. She wasn't sure how much to wager and had no experience in gambling either. She placed all the 10 gold coins in the wager window. Another notification welcomed her after a series of crackling sounds.

System: You have unlocked “Undead Battlefield”. Defeat all monsters in your battlefield to win. You can enter the battlefields of other challengers after completing your battle to earn a portion of their rewards.

Rain was instantly teleported to a vantage point besides the battlefield that was enveloped in thick darkness energy. She smiled when she watched thousands of undead assembled at the centre of a desert, over 1000 yards away. “One with the Void” triggered the moment she entered the darkness zone. She immobilised the entire undead leadership, including 20 level 145+ mythic and one level 150 high mythic monster, and 75% of the forces with “Bewitched” and “Experience Steal”. She waited for 15 seconds and wiped them out with “Death Burst” and “Silent Degradation”. The peripheral undead monsters noticed her presence only when she cast “Earth Mother’s Blessing” to fully restore her HP that had fallen below 7% mark as a result of the hexes. Rain unleashed a storm of darkness blades upon them using mana manipulation. Her execution and control was nowhere close to Violet’s but was enough to wipe the battlefield clean of the mindless hordes running towards her.

The monsters didn’t provide any EXP or drop any loot upon death. However, the hexes were deathly effective in stealing both HP and EXP. She received the victory notification and 110 demonic gold coins. She set off to explore the nearby battlefields in the hope of reuniting with her teammates. Another battle waged 5000 yards away from her. Piles of dead undead minions lay on the ground. 30 level 130 mythic monsters surrounded and attacked a cloaked demon player. She watched the assassin patiently negotiate the attacks, and counterattack at every opportunity. Despite the heaven defying combat standards the assassin displayed, it was obvious that she had bitten off more than she could chew. She was unable to break through the encirclement despite her best efforts. The battle hung in a stalemate and it was only a matter of time before she perished due to exhaustion.

Rain found the assassin’s aura familiar. She had a nagging feeling that she was acquainted with this cloaked lady. She figured out the assassin’s identity after watching one of her trademark moves and decided to help her out. 10 pitch black darkness spears shot towards the blind spots of the monsters and impaled them. Millions in damage appeared on their heads. Five monsters split from their group and ran towards her. Rain conjured another 10 darkness spears. She combined them in pairs and reinforced them using illusion and time mana. She unleashed the spears the moment the undead monsters arrived within 100 yards. The monsters got a shock when the spears suddenly vanished within 50 yards of them. The spears reappeared 5 yards ahead and penetrated their heads. Over 5 billion critical damage appeared above the monsters heads, flinging them back by 50 yards and stunning them.

Rain wasn’t satisfied with the combination of illusion and temporal acceleration. She conjured 100 darkness mana blades and strengthened them with earth, fire, illusion and time mana. The blades shot forth in a straight line towards the 10 monsters she impaled earlier. This time she focussed entirely on temporal acceleration, constantly changing the trajectories of the blades, giving the monsters no clue about their intended destination. Each monster received 10 critical hits when the blades chopped through their body, wiping over 8 billion HP from each of them.

Rain wasn’t done yet. The last attempt gave her some ideas to increase the lethality of her blades. She swapped earth with air and illusion with space and prepared five paired spears. The dual complementary pair alignment smashed through the stunned monsters heads. The spears exploded on impact wiping another 10 billion from each of the five monsters within 100 yards of her. She experimented once again, strengthening 5 spears with fire and space and another 5 with air and time. She combined the pairs and strengthened them using illusion mana. The dazed monsters had no clue what hit them. They collapsed on the ground, never to rise again. The impact force of the explosion flung the 10 monsters racing behind them by 50 yards. Rain used the same trick with 100 blades to explode them to bits.

The cloaked assassin was perplexed by Rain’s intervention. It was easier for the newcomer to kill her and steal her reward rather than help her win by thinning out the monsters. She decided to confront her ally after finishing the battle. She cashed in on the opportunity to slay two of the 15 monsters surrounding her and managed to force another three in a fainted state. Rain lured five more monsters and exploded them to bits. She waited for the assassin to finish the rest.

“Who are you and why did you help me?”

“Consider my debt to you, paid in full” Rain spoke before turning to leave. Those words froze the cloaked assassin. She gambled everything she had to get to this point. She had to split her winnings with Rain, but it was much more profitable than losing it all. She wondered about her saviour’s identity and only one name came to her mind.

“Rrr. Rain stop! We must talk”

“If it’s about asking me to leave Zero Wing then you don’t need to waste your time”

“Listen carefully. Black Flame’s days are numbered. The entire Flower of Seven Sins has been activated”

“Oh really? Is there anybody in Flower of Seven Sins who can one-shot kill the mythic monsters you just fought? If not, don’t bother wasting your lives away. You won’t even manage to get past his security team”. The reply stunned the cloaked assassin. While there were quite a few who could defeat the monsters, none could kill a level 130 undead mythic with every hit. Claiming that Black Flame could was outrageous and boasting that a few within Zero Wing could achieve that was delusional.

“She isn’t lying big sis Soul. One of them exploded 20 mythic monsters with a single skill and killed their high mythic boss with the next hit. We’re lucky to have left that doomed organisation with our reputations intact” a weary voice seething with pain lingered over the horizon. They turned around to look at a demon berserker dragging himself over with his arms. One of his legs was missing while the other was mangled beyond recognition.

“You left Flower of Seven Sins?” Rain was shocked at the disclosure. Hidden Soul wanted to respond but couldn’t find the words. A single tear trickled down her eyes. It revealed everything her heart wanted to hide. Brute Spear however, didn’t give a damn.

“Those bastards conspired to oust big sis Soul. I’ll hunt and shred every single one of them” he bellowed with rage. The commanders of Flower of Seven Sins couldn’t tolerate someone so young and capable to tower above them. They borrowed her equipment for a ‘secret mission’ and covertly set her up for a fight with Lotus from ‘Dark Soul’. Lotus was poached with an offer of becoming the commander of ‘Sin of Pride’ if she defeated Hidden Soul. Flower of Seven Sins commanders decked Lotus from head to toe in fragmented legendary equipment and set them up for a duel. However, despite her absolute attributes advantage Lotus couldn’t defeat Hidden Soul. They ended up killing each other, ending the duel in a tie. The commanders relished this fortuitous outcome and ousted Hidden Soul for failing to defend the organisation’s honour and relegated Lotus to a team leader position. Brute Spear rage-quit when he heard the news.

“What are your plans?” Rain asked.

“We wish to create our own Adventurer team to challenge the ‘Broken Ruins’ that even the Flower of Seven Sins is scared to venture into. We came here to bolster our strength to succeed in our next step. I plan to go to Read Leaf Town in Star Moon Kingdom tomorrow to seek out Maple Leaf while Brute will head to Flame Dragon City to recruit Frosteye. I was hoping you could join us too” Hidden Soul spoke in a dejected tone. Her failure to achieve her goals here would definitely impede her plans to recruit the two experts she spoke of.


	101. Time of Death

“Would you guys consider joining Zero Wing instead?” Rain inquired. She wasn’t going to let a god sent opportunity go to waste. Any ex-commander of Flower of Seven Sins would be a hot recruitment target, especially one that wasn’t an arrogant, self-righteous bastard like the most of them. Hidden Soul rolled her eyes at those words.

“Black Flame is an enemy of all demon players. It’s highly likely that he will execute us on sight. Besides, Zero Wing has nothing to offer to demon players like us” Hidden Soul sighed. She was taken aback when Rain burst into laughter at those words.

“You guys know nothing about Zero Wing” Rain chuckled. “Zero Wing can bring you to places Flower of Seven Sins can only dream of as long as you prove your worth. Anyway, that option is open unless you guys do something stupid and earn the guild’s ire” she concluded and left them to their own devices. Rain earnt 500 gold coins after splitting some of Hidden Soul’s winnings.

“Are you sure that the player who assisted you was from Zero Wing?” Hidden Soul asked after Rain left the scene.

“Yes. She said her name was ‘Your Highness’ and she’s from Zero Wing. She laughed like a maniac afterwards and whispered ‘Shhh! Don’t tell anyone’ and went away laughing hysterically. She showed no hostility towards me despite knowing that I am a demon player. I doubt that’s her real name but it really doesn’t matter” Brute Spear spoke with a hint of admiration.

“That name does ring a bell. It’s the same player that suddenly appeared inside the Starlight Fortress in the western continent. She was right on both counts. They won’t attack demon players on sight and despite planting thousands of spies we really know nothing about Zero Wing” Hidden Soul sighed.

“Who was that lady?”

“A ghost from the past. I expect to see her more often now that our roles are reversed” Hidden Soul chuckled at the thought of the recruitment offer from the one she had been trying to poach all this while. “Let’s rest and recover for now. We are way off our winnings target. The next few trials will be much more difficult than this one. Let’s be prudent and not throw everything away”

. . . .

Rain continued to face one challenge after another for the next 20 hours. She wagered the maximum allowed amount of 500 gold coins for each trial. Her winning streak was sorely tested in the 15th round when she hit a challenge named “Time of Death”. Her defensive mana manipulation and defensive combat techniques were put through the ringer in a blighted wasteland, flooded with invisible energy whips that couldn’t be sensed, blocked or deflected. The needle turned every five minutes, notching up the difficulty of the trial. Rain lost 10% HP within the first 30 seconds before figuring out that the challenge tested her mana sense, reaction time and evasive manoeuvers.

The trial drove her nuts. She was at her wits end while trying to figure out a way to survive. Her HP was down to 50% within the first 10 minutes. She set up multiple illusory barriers that acted as radars to sense the number, length and direction of whips. It took her 30 minutes to sufficiently adapt to the environment, successfully evading 100 consecutive whips with minimal to no effort. Her HP was finally poking upwards of 35%.

The needle turned again, this time incrementing by 3 counts at once. A thundering slash cut through Rain’s location, shattering all illusory barriers and forcing mana to turn berserk. Rain managed to evade with a timely somersault but the speed and timing of the assault convinced her that the countdown towards her death had begun.

“There are times when you can either wait for your deaths or trust your strengths and take death to the cleaners. I choose the second option 10 out of 10 times” Snows words flashed through her mind. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead and a wide smile appeared on her lips. It was time to put her theories to test.

Secret Spellcasting Technique – Parallel Cast!

An illusory copy appeared next to Rain. If she could teach an illusory copy to cast and draw hexes, then she could make them execute combat techniques as well. They started setting up a few illusory barriers before Rain gained enough control of her illusory copy to execute “Time Warp”.

“Too weak” Rain had a dejected look on her face. The effects of time warp created an energy flutter. Spellcasting copies weren’t strong enough for combat. However weak the ripple was, it was sufficient to flush out the energy whips closing in on her.

“These ripples tend to move outwards in a swirl. If I can make them loop in a circle they would reinforce each other and last much longer. I need to buy time to experiment” she thought before implementing the next step.

Advanced combat technique, Illusory Flood!

Secret Spellcasting Technique – Multi Cast!

Rain flooded the area with her copies to expand her detection network and summoned 3 illusory copies that mimicked her actions with random fractional variations to probe completion rates of spells. She fervently evaded the energy whips and continued her experiments for the next seven minutes. She was tottering on the edge of 10% HP when she finally made a breakthrough. A stable energy circle was formed and lasted for 30 seconds before fizzling out. Rain used four copies in a 5-leaf clover distribution to achieve the results. She replaced the copies with those from ‘Parallel Cast’ to stabilise the circle further. She didn’t mind her HP dropping to critical levels. She had bigger goals to accomplish.

“Time to bring out the big guns!” Rain chirped.

Tier 2 Illusory skill, Dark Spirit!

Four illusory copies, each carrying 100% of Rain’s attributes manifested around her.

Advanced combat technique, Time Warp!

Energy ripples shot forth in all directions from five points. A thick vortex formed around the area the ripples collided. The vortex expanded outwards, forming an energy barrier around Rain and her copies. The invisible energy whips came to a crashing halt when they hit the energy barrier. Rain figured that the whips looked stationary since they were slowed by over 1/100th of a second. She bought herself 200 seconds to think about the next steps. She cast “Earth Mother’s Touch” to heal herself back to 100%.

“If it can contain the energy outside, then should it do the same for ones inside?”

Advanced combat technique, Time Warp!

Energy ripples shot forth in all directions from five points. Rain’s assessment was spot on. Ripples collided at multiple locations, resulting in multiple vortices. The vortices clashed and consumed each other as they moved back and forth, combining into a massive vortex that was five times thicker than the original. Rain’s lips curled upwards at the results. She waited for the vortex to stabilise and consume the energy barrier outside before repeating the process.

Advanced combat technique, Time Warp!

A system notification caught her attention before the mammoth vortex could stabilise.

System: Congratulations! You have created a Silver Combination Combat Technique. Please name your combat technique.

“Woohoo! What shall I call this temporal turtle shell!” Rain was thrilled. She had delayed the whips by at least 20 minutes through consistent time dilation. This defensive technique didn’t actually defend her from any attacks, but it slowed them down sufficiently to give her a breather. Even higher tiered attacks or invulnerability breaking attacks would have to bide for their time to get to whoever was hiding inside the shell, giving them ample time to prepare their defences or find means of escape. Failure to defend or escape could mean certain death against powerful adversaries.

She watched the clock increment by three counts once again. It was obvious that the system was unable to accept this outcome. Energy whips flooded every inch of the surroundings, engaging in a vicious dance of slaughter. The barrier withstood the assault, slowing the whips down by 1/100th of a second on their way to Rain. She watched the whips clashing against each other, unleashing spatial tears and massive energy ripples in the process. The carnage stopped after 15 minutes and a pissed off demon appeared before her.

“Nobody can survive my trial of hell. You are a fool to think that you have won. So what if you bought yourself some time. You have only delayed your certain death. You’ll be finished when your shell crumbles and you face the full brunt of all the attacks”

“And what makes you so sure of that Your Majesty Demon King Junghorrah?” Rain asked politely.

“Just accept it. You have no way of escaping your shell” the Demon King spoke with a smirk. There however was a tinge of admiration in his words. Dead or not, Rain had survived the full duration of the trial.

“Will you give me an awesome reward if I escape?”

“I’ll multiply your winnings by 10 times if you manage to escape”

“Will you multiply all my winnings by 10 times if I manage to get out of this shell unhurt?” Rain was egging the demon on

“Let’s make a bet. I will multiply all your winnings by 100 if you manage to get out. However, you’ll lose everything if you shred even 1 HP in the process” Demon King Junghorrah decreed. Rain received a contract confirming the same and signed it without blinking.

“Alright! Behold my grand escape!” Rain declared.

Bloodline Affinity Skill – Affinity Shroud!

Mana around Rain’s body burst in vivid colours increasing her power tremendously. Rain was giggling throughout. It wasn’t the first time she was cheating through her trials. Affinity shroud had a side ability of removing all silence debuffs for a short while. She could freely use her equipment skills for the next 60 seconds. She however didn’t need that long to escape from her shell.

Swap Position!


	102. Time Capsule

The demon had no idea what hit him. He cursed and swore for a while before bursting into fits of diabolical laughter.

“Well played adventurer! Nobody has won a gamble against me in a thousand years. Furthermore, I have never suffered such a massive loss. You have earned my wealth and my respect. This jukebox will welcome you whenever you wish to return” the demon dissipated into blue mist and disappeared from the spot through a portal orb.

“Dang. He obviously built backdoors in his own jukebox” Rain bit her lips. She was disappointed that she was unable to pay the demon back in his own coin. Two cards appeared above her and floated into her hands.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Junghorrah’s Jukebox – Lifetime Pass

Allows the pass holder and five additional guests to visit the jukebox. Usage of this card doesn't count towards the entry limits imposed by the jukebox. All visitors are awarded 50 complimentary demonic gold coins.

Cooldown: 180 days

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Demon King’s Distinguished Guest (Consumable)

Allows the pass holder and five guests, entry to restricted sections, or any other privileged sections in areas controlled by Demon Kings, unless they have statutory orders prohibiting such an activity.

Grants the pass holder 10 complimentary demonic gold coins/ contribution points / reputation points when participating in various Demonic trials, quests, crusades and other meritorious services commissioned by the Demon Kings.

Usage count: 0/5. The pass does not avail you any further benefits when the usage count is exhausted.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“These demons are very hard to impress but they shower such generous rewards if they are happy with you” Rain thought.

System: You earned 5000 demonic gold coins for winning this round. Gained 5500 gold. Total after round 15: 70,610 demonic gold.

System: Demonic contract fulfilled. Increased winnings to 7,060,010 demonic gold coins.

Rain was lost in her thoughts when the previous system message repeated.

System: Please name your combat technique. If you do not name it, the system will automatically generate a name for it after 10 minutes.

Rain had a good laugh thinking about a name for her turtle shell.

‘Time Capsule’

Another system notification welcomed her after she specified the technique's name.

System: Congratulations! You are the first team to create a Silver Combination Combat Technique. Rewarding one Silver Team Orb, one Epic title 'Silver Legionary' and one Epic Treasure Chest.

A sparkling crimson orb appeared before her as soon as the system notification ended.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Silver Team Orb] (Lesser Legendary Rank Item)

Can record up to six advanced Silver level (or below) combination combat techniques that were created by any member of your team. Players may learn the combat techniques in immersive environments. Each attempt will cost 200 magic crystals per hour per team.

Cooldown: 1 hour after each use.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Silver Legionary] (Epic Title)

Expenditure when executing combat techniques is reduced by 10% for all allied users within 200 yards. Expenditure is reduced by another 15% when executing combat techniques created by the title holder. Enjoy the status of Count in any city, kingdom, or empire. Adventurer associations will acknowledge you as a 5 star adventurer.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rain ended her challenge and headed towards the gifts hall. She found Violet and Wu Lan sitting on the staircase looking frustrated and dejected.

“Shhh! She is raging mad. Don’t bother her or she might explode on you” Wu Lan whispered.

“Hey! I am right here. I can hear you” Violet raged. Wu Lan cowered and closed her eyes while Rain laughed at the exchange between them.

“Blame my rotten luck. What kind of trial reduces your Endurance by 100%” Violet was fuming.

“She hit the ‘Wheel of Misfortune’ on her 15th trial. She was about to win when the system instantly killed her on the last spin” Wu Lan explained with a sorry look on her face.

“What about you?” Rain asked.

“I hit the ‘Wheel of Misfortune’ on my 15th trial as well. The first spin reduced my Intelligence by 50%. I got so mad that I blasted the damn machine. An ugly and grumpy demon, swimming in bling came over and yelled at me. He disqualified me after giving me an earful. I wanted to cut his tongue out but didn’t get a chance to” Wu Lan spoke while puffing her face in a tantrum.

“Violet. It’s not your fault. That demon kills everybody in their 15th trial using underhanded means if necessary. Where is the guild leader?” Rain asked.

“He’s inside the gift hall. He wanted to exchange something but he’s short by quite some amount” Wu Lan replied.

“You guys didn’t help him out?” Rain winked at Wu Lan.

“Boss Violet finished first. She bought six God crystals and a magic star with her winnings. I gave mine to a little girl who was crying for help”

“You guys want more stuff? I earned quite a bit. Let’s go shopping!” Both of them followed Rain back to the gift hall.

. . . .

“Brother expert, we’ll forever be in your debt if you help us exchange those swords” a cloaked assassin pleaded with the cloaked swordsman in front of her.

“Lady, your story is a little bit hard to sell since none of the swords you seek suit you or your friend here”

“It’s meant to be a gift for a friend of ours. Please do not doubt my sincerity. I am willing to offer you this fragmented legendary bracelet as a token of our goodwill”

“You are willing to incur my debt and offer me something that precious to please your friend. I wish I had friends like you”

“Don’t tell me you plan to throw away your winnings on Maple Leaf and that Frosty guy” a voice startled the 3 players in the room. The swordsman was frozen stiff at the mention of those names.

“I don’t know about Frosty but brother Maple Leaf is an accomplished swordsman and definitely worthy of such gifts” the swordsman grasped the situation to the tee and figured out why the two cloaked players in front of him felt so familiar.

“Guild leader, you know this Maple guy?” Rain was startled. However, it was the two cloaked players who felt the impact of that question. They panicked and involuntarily withdrew a few steps in shock and horror.

“You are guild leader Black Flame?” the assassin asked in a nervous voice.

“I am. You must be commander Soul and brother Spear perhaps? I was wondering why Maple declined my invitation. He told me he’s meeting some friends later. I am happy he has such good friends”

“Now that you understand our position I hope you can help us out” Hidden Soul pleaded.

“These items are crap. Let’s head to the restricted section. Soul you are coming with us” Rain interjected.

“Do you mind waiting here brother Spear?” Wu Lan asked.

“I’ll be here, Your Highness” Brute Spear replied. The ladies burst into laughter. He had no idea why Hidden Soul was laughing along with them. Wu Lan had him wrapped around her finger. The demon guard captain inspected their pass and let them in. Everyone was in awe of the items and designs available for exchange in the restricted area.

“Hmm” Black Flame suddenly stood frozen in amazement.

“Something caught your fancy guild leader Black Flame?” Hidden Soul prodded. She was wondering why he was staring at a useless epic item.

“Yes Commander Soul but I doubt I have sufficient gold to exchange it” he replied truthfully.

“I can lend you some if you are short”. Those words startled everyone including Black Flame. Hidden Soul finally understood what Rain meant when she told her that Zero Wing could open doors that Flower of Seven Sins could only dream of. Countless members of their organisation had been inside the gift hall but not even their shadow could enter the restricted section. They could only watch the NPCs who visited this section with envy. Rain had a wry smile on her face. The carrot she dangled had piqued Soul’s interest.


	103. Harbinger of Death

“You think that suit of armour would fit you?” Rain asked with a playful smile. Soul rolled her eyes at her but froze the instant she realised that it wasn’t a provocation but a hint at what Zero Wing could offer. She stood frozen for a while. The demonic encrusted crystal inset armour was meant for Marquis ranked and above demons. Rain held Soul’s arms to comfort her and reasserted her offer.

“I am not selling a tall promise. I am offering a chance. I can exchange this armour but whether you take that chance and prove yourself worthy of wearing it is up to you” Rain spoke with conviction. Soul knew she wasn’t kidding. However, there was a chance she could be misinformed.

“You realise this armour is for Marquis ranked demons? I became a Count not long ago” Hidden Soul asked with an expectant look. Gaining demonic reputation points was at least 100 times more difficult than gaining humanity reputation points. The gap between the nobility rankings was much wider as well. It was well justified since ranking up was coupled with a tremendous boost to a demon's strength, combat power and access to high level skills and equipment. Majority of quests could only be availed through a Demon King's favour.

“I know. Like I said before there is a chance that you could be wearing it in the next 24 hours” Rain affirmed. Hidden Soul was thunderstruck at those words. This was beyond insane. Even a Demon King couldn’t offer something so outrageous.

“I’ll need to speak with Brute”

“I’ll send her to beat him into submission if he as much as makes a sound” Rain giggled while pointing at Wu Lan. Soul could only smile in response. That guy was clearly smitten.

“Guild leader, just pick whatever you wish to exchange. Soul will assist you to pick equipment for the legionaries. I am reserving this set for her, unless she can find something better than this” Rain spoke with absolute confidence and stepped away. Both Black Flame and Hidden Soul looked at her and wondered if they heard wrong. Was she planning to rob this place?

. . . .

Violet was fixated on a staff at the other end of the room. The legendary staff “Radiance of the Cosmos”, was indeed drool worthy and absolutely terrifying in the hands of a Celestial. The one million gold exchange rate was equally exasperating. Wu Lan on the other hand, was shivering with fear at the sight of the staff. Her ‘Godly Vision’ skill pierced through the illusion shrouding the staff and laid bare its macabre secrets. It seemed that the staff was aware of the breach and was watching her intently as well. Rain was irked when ‘Eye of Dark Seer’ was forcefully disabled when she looked at the staff. Humans couldn’t equip the staff due to its high life rating requirement. It was highly unlikely that the staff would find many takers among demon players either.

“Cool staff yeah? It’s a display only set. We are not allowed to offer it for exchange” a demon NPC guard interrupted their gaze.

“Why is this staff so special?”

“This staff is the prison of its original owner. Only those with an eternal will can dream to equip this staff and relish its power. Many have succumbed to its mental suppression, only to become mindless thralls wreaking havoc and destruction. Demon King Junghorrah doesn’t wish for any more demons to become its puppets” the guard explained

“I would like to challenge its trial” Violet raised her hand. Wu Lan could only watch in shock and horror at those words. The aghast look on her face didn’t escape the notice of everyone around her. However, it was too late to warn Violet about it.

A ripple of energy shot forth from the staff, slowing time by 1/50th and freezing everybody within the restricted area in suspended animation. A vortex formed above the staff opening a chasm of silvery black lightning. A deformed exalted stepped out of it and smiled at Violet.

“A worthy challenger indeed. However, you aren’t ready yet. Return if you manage to clear your next tier challenge” the abomination decreed before disappearing into the chasm. A bolt shot out of the staff and singed Violet’s neck. The price tag below the staff disintegrated into mist. The words ‘Reserved for Challenger’ appeared in their place. Violet received a series of system notifications.

System: You have been cursed by Al’Kurut, the dark sage of afterlife. Level -1. You’ll need twice the EXP to level up. Death penalty increased to 500%. Difficulty rank of all quests and trials you undertake increased by one rank (up to God rank). You have 15 days to initiate your tier upgrade challenge. Your attributes will be permanently reduced by 1% per day and your level will drop by 1 every 7 days for every day of delay.

System: You are required to succeed your tier upgrade challenge in ‘God mode’ to rid yourself of this curse. Al’Kurut will acknowledge you as a challenger for this staff if you succeed. Failure will result in loss of a tier and 20 levels.

System: You have been marked by Al’Kurut as the ‘Harbinger of Death’ [Epic Ranked Passive Title]. Those who die by your hands will suffer 300% death penalty and would be weakened by 25% for 7 natural days. Every kill will award you a shard of death crystal. If you fail your trial, you must collect 1,000,000,000 shards to escape this curse before you hit level 100. The curse will become permanent if your level falls below 100 at any time. Instant kills will double the death penalty and number of shards awarded. Title will automatically upgrade its rank with every tier up in 'God mode'.

Violet had a blank look on her face. There were lots of things she wanted to achieve and perfect before embarking on her tier 5 challenge. 15 days weren’t even sufficient for her to reach level 150. She however relaxed after recalling that she could use her legacy key and legacy scroll to activate the trial. The abyssal invasion was a perfect opportunity for her to improve her techniques and gain levels. She needed five times the EXP of a regular player to conquer the next 10 levels. She had already used the magic star and four god crystals to fully upgrade Death’s Sigh to fragmented legendary rank. Two other god crystals were used to partially restore the crown. She had to find 18 more to restore it fully. She relaxed further upon noticing Rain and Wu Lan standing on either side and Black Flame standing in front of her. These people would do everything in their power to help her out. However, she was too stubborn to ask for help. It was a trial of her will power. She would only be fooling herself if she depended on others to accomplish her goals.

“Violet, are you alright?” Black Flame asked.

“I am fine. There are some things I need to discuss with the three of you when we return” It was her duty to keep the guild informed even though she didn’t want to ask for help.

“Sure. We’ll head back soon. Rain we have a list of stuff we are interested in. What’s our budget like?”

“Ahm.. 7.. Million” Rain couldn’t hold her laughter watching several jaws drop around her. Hidden Soul felt as if she had been flattened by a road-roller. She wondered if she would ever be able to prove her worth in this guild of overachievers. Everybody around her could one-shot kill mythic monsters while she could only grind them to death. The hardest part to swallow was that every single one of them was a noob at the start of the game. All of them had grabbed that one chance with both their hands and never let go. She didn’t realise she was shivering from stress until Rain held her arms and calmed her down again.

“I just got lucky on a bet. There is no need to freak out” Rain clarified before transferring her earnings to Black Flame. There were many items for spell casters but only a super-spell book piqued her interest. They exchanged a few sets of legendary and fragmented legendary items, forging and engineering designs, grandmaster level demonic potion recipes, equipment sets and pieces, and other tools. Black Flame was happy to get his hands on the ‘Ring of Creation’, the earthly treasure that his stigmata reacted to a while ago.

The guard captain was frustrated when he saw items flying off the shelves. It took them many millennia to collect those items. He decided to intervene and invited Black Flame and Hidden Soul to follow him through a secret door.

“Since you are our distinguished guests, you can pick one item each from the Demon King’s personal collection” the guard captain explained, without revealing a tinge of frustration. A couple of big ticket items would definitely peg them back and save their private collection from being wiped clean, and preserve their reputation among other patrons.

Both the players were bamboozled by the glitter of peak legendary items and equipment that adorned the room. Hidden Soul was drooling over a pair of legendary short swords. She however, knew that there wasn’t a wisp of a chance of her procuring those. Getting into this place was already like a sledgehammer to her head. She felt she was playing a different game from the rest. Zero Wing’s aura itself was sufficient to smack her reservations into a corner. It was all too surreal. Black Flame was similarly fixated, but at the darkest and thinnest object in the room that was encased in a crystal.

“Commander Soul, just grab them. There is no point in thinking too much” Black Flame chuckled. Hidden Soul could only stare at him in shock.

“Guild leader, I no longer am a Commander. I left Flower of Seven Sins a while back”

“I wasn’t talking about the organisation you left behind”. There was a long silence after those words were spoken. Those subtle words cut her much deeper than she anticipated. Her eyes were moist watching her world turn upside down. Her biggest enemy respected and valued her much more than the organisation she worked so hard for. The message was loud and clear.

“Honourable Guard Captain, I would like to exchange these short swords” Hidden Soul finally made her decision.

“And I would like to exchange this tome of sacrifice” Black Flame spoke. His words made the guard captain caress his beard and nod in approval. He acquired a fragment of a bona fide godly relic treasure and another chapter of ‘Bible of Darkness’ on the same day. Even a seasoned gambler like Junghorrah would swoon at the odds.

“Honourable Guard Captain, we still have funds left after exchanging these items. Will it be possible to exchange that crown as well?” The question threw the demon off guard. Just how loaded were these guys? It took him a while to collect himself.

“That crown can only be equipped by a Demon King. May I suggest something more suited to your taste? You might be able to equip that item in future like the rest of the equipment in this room” The demon offered. Black Flame wanted to reject his offer but remembered that NPCs rarely offered recommendations and these suggestions were rarely wrong. He willingly agreed to be surprised.


	104. Trinity of Darkness

“I’ll be honoured” Black Flame replied. The demon let out a grunt of satisfaction and approached a bare section of the wall. He drew an insignia on the pedestal in front of it, causing the façade to crumble into tiny cubicle blocks and disappear from the view. A pitch black sword, crackling with black lightning adorned that space.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sword of Destruction [Lesser Divine Ranked, One Handed Sword]

Level: 170 – 220

Restriction: Tier 5 or higher. Restriction waived for Demon Kings.

One of the seven swords crafted by the Lord of Destruction. This sword was presented to Demon King Sickletoe. He gambled the sword away and earned the Lord’s ire. This sword changed hands multiple times until it came into possession of Demon King Junghorrah, who won it in a wager against Demon God Atlock.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Go ahead and try it” The demon egged, visibly satisfied with the progress of his masterplan to squeeze them dry and save the rest of their collection. No challenger in thousands of years had managed to gather sufficient winnings to exchange this item.

Black Flame found himself gravitating towards the sword. He steadily lost control over his body as the sword pulled him towards itself, like a moth to a flame. Divine items were no joke. Legendary items had power to consume their owner’s mind, body and soul. Divine items could enslave communities. Both Hidden Soul and the Demon Guard Captain watched in horror at this unexpected outcome. Black Flame knew he had to resist the sword before it was too late. He wouldn't lose anything by revealing a secret or two. Anything was preferable to losing his life and crippling his account at such an important juncture.

A strange silvery glow erupted from his eyes, painting the dark room in hues of silver and white and calming his beleaguered mental state. The brief moment of clarity made him realise that it wasn’t the divine sword that was pulling him. It was ‘Moloch’s Ring’ that was dragging him towards the sword. The ring was absorbing the darkness energy emanating from the sword. He had to break this energy link, regardless of the costs! Failure could doom him forever! He held the abyssal blade close to his chest.

Black Dragon's Soul!

Advanced Bronze Combat Technique – Divine Change!

Black Flame knew that he needed immense power to smack the energy beam to shreds. Executing his personal combat technique in dragon form was the fastest way to achieve his objective. The energy link shook violently for a moment but it stayed intact.

Tier 2 Skill, Dark Ghost!

Advanced Bronze Combat Technique – Divine Change!

Hidden Soul froze at the sight of the dragon splitting into four copies. Just when she thought she had seen everything, she was served with another paralytic jolt. The energy link stood no chance against a well coordinated and precise divine change attack by four dragons and shattered instantly. Black Flame ignored the cacophony of enraged growls and agonising shrieks bursting out of the ring. He dismissed the doppelgangers and reverted into human form. A system notification greeted him.

System: Moloch's Ring has detected the presence of the Power of Darkness. Do you want Moloch's Ring to devour the Power of Darkness?

No!

System: Legendary Quest “Lord of Balrog's Fall” update. Moloch's Ring has accumulated sufficient Power of Darkness. Second seal was forcefully lifted.

“What?” Black Flame was outraged. However, there was no point crying over spilt milk. He resolved to locate more chapters of the Bible of Darkness and restore it before the ring had a chance to devour him. He approached the divine sword and held it in his hands. Destruction energy erupted from the sword and surrounded him the moment he touched the sword, creating a defensive and offensive barrier of crackling black lightning and flames. He could sense the ‘Bible of Darkness’ and the ‘Mark of the Lord’ resonate in response to the sword, completing the trinity of darkness and fuelling the energy barrier. Even the Demon Guard Captain got a shock, watching the sword react as if it were held by the Lord himself.

“Guild leader Black Flame, this sword seems to like you” Hidden Soul tried to poke at the barrier out of curiosity and got electrocuted as a result. The accidental damage startled her but it shook the demon out of his daze.

“You must be the chosen of the Lord to evoke such a response from his sword. You can exchange it for its base rate of 1,888,888 demonic gold coins” the demon spoke with a lot of respect and appreciation. He didn’t dare to cheat Black Flame by asking for a much higher price as per his original plan.

“In that case I’ll take both this sword and that crown. At the end of the day, it is still a legendary item. Keeping it as a decoration isn't a bad idea either." Black Flame quipped. Hidden Soul was thunderstruck at those words. “Those eyes! Those words! It can’t be him” she mumbled under her breath. She held her hands on her face in horror. She lost count of how many times she had felt this way today.

They returned from the secret room with their goodies and joined up with the rest. The 75,000 gold shortfall was bridged by Brute Spear and another expert from Zero Wing, he met inside the gift hall. This mysterious assassin had single handedly defeated six Flower of Seven Sins members who challenged him outside the gift hall and won over their portion of the winnings as a result.

. . . .

“Kid, you got some awesome skills. Are you among the top 5 assassins in your guild?”

“Brother expert, please do not mock me. I don’t even qualify to join the main force” the kid replied in an embarrassed tone. Brute Spear was shell shocked at the reply. He had no idea who this kid was but he was extremely familiar with his opponent’s strengths. He stood between him and his attackers earlier in an attempt to talk them out of creating trouble. However, the Demon King made an appearance and allowed a six vs one challenge for his entertainment. Contrary to expectations, he won big time and recouped some of the losses he incurred earlier.

. . . .

“Look who is back. I wonder where you disappeared”. Soundless recognised the voice and finally saw a physical manifestation of his benefactor. A black cloak concealed her identity but the glowing purple six-wing emblem eased all his worries.

“I have no clue either but I am glad to be of service” Soundless replied in a smug voice. He had fully recovered his strength inside ‘Temporal Retreat’ and trained relentlessly for over 48 hours in a 500% temporal dilation environment. He exited after making another breakthrough with his ‘Phantom Leap’ technique and was imprisoned by Junghorrah for entering his jukebox without a permit. His only shot at freedom was by achieving 10 successive victories through various challenges.

“Brat you already skipped one full day of training and still act cheekily! That creepy lady would skin you alive if you play truant any longer. Hurry now, we are on our way back” Wu Lan chided Soundless while snickering away behind the illusion.

“Yes my lady. I’ll report for training right away” Soundless panicked at the thought of Miranda’s bloodshot eyes following him everywhere.

. . . .

“Brother Spear, could I have a moment”

“Don’t bother. I know you want to join Zero Wing. I wanted to scold you earlier but I have seen enough to change my assessment of the guild. You only need to worry about what your elder brother has to say”

“That doesn’t worry me at all. I want to ask if you’ll join Zero Wing along with me. You gave up everything for my sake. I’ll never quit on you. So either we join together or we move along with our original plan. Guild leader Black Flame has assured me that we won’t be treated any differently than the rest of the members. He has promised to bring us to meet Maple Leaf later, irrespective of our decision”

“Hahaha. Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet. He is Maple Leaf” Brute Spear chuckled.

“Well I have bad news for you. He is Frosteye as well”. The smile on Brute Spear’s face vanished. Hidden Soul couldn’t help laughing at the blank look of shock on his face.

“That prick! He outfoxed us. We go left or right, we still run into him. I can’t figure out if it’s checkmate or stalemate” Brute Spear spoke before erupting into laughter.

“Maybe it’s fate. So what do you say?”

“You know I’ll follow you into the jaws of death if needed. Besides, both of us already owe Black Flame a debt of gratitude. You would have never strived so hard to become the commander if he hadn’t defeated that asshole Sky and forced him to quit Pride. I wouldn’t have toiled so hard to improve myself if Frosteye hadn’t shown up either. However, I’ll tear them to shreds if they mistreat you” Brute Spear resolved.

. . . .

“Is that the cute little girl you helped earlier? It seems she is looking for you” Rain pointed out a demon kid tugging a disabled lady with an amputated arm and a burnt face. The girl jumped in excitement upon noticing Wu Lan and dragged her mother. The disabled lady however shuddered at the sight of the Demon Guard Captain who accompanied Rain’s group out of the gift hall.

“Beware that wretched cripple. She is a condemned convict. She is nothing but a blot on this land” The demon spat with disgust.

“What crime did she commit?” Rain was curious

“Her husband abandoned his post in the last undead uprising and threatened the lives of thousands”

“I don’t understand. Why is she paying for her husband’s crimes?” Violet asked.

“Those are our ways. That coward should have considered the lives of his family and hundreds of families his actions threatened. King Junghorrah was gracious enough to spare her life since she was pregnant. She was released today after that kid posted her deposit”. There was complete silence after those words were uttered. Rain was thanking her lucky stars that Wu Lan had run off to meet the kid. She would have been thoroughly enraged at those words, made a fuss and blown things up. Violet was enraged as well but Rain managed to keep her from exploding.

“Thank you for your words of caution. We’ll go and warn our friend about it as well” Rain handled the situation diplomatically before leaving with Violet whose eyes were burning with rage. Black Flame and Soundless followed behind them.


	105. Legion of Darkness

Rain and the rest of the group caught up with Wu Lan who was playing with the girl while her mother shuddered in fear at the attention they were getting.

“Hi there. You don’t need to fear us” Rain tried to calm the shivering demon.

“You guys should leave as soon as possible. You don’t need to suffer someone else’s misery” the shaking demon uttered.

“Why don’t you come with us? I can’t promise much but at least you and your daughter can live a life of dignity” Rain offered

“If I leave I’ll never be able to clear my husband’s name. He wasn’t a coward or a traitor as they claim. He was the bravest demon I know of. I wish I was there, fighting next to him to defend against the invasion. Besides, I am nothing but a useless cripple now. We’ll only become a burden” the teary eyed demon stated. Rain could sense her remorse and the depth of her conviction to seek justice for her late husband.

“Look around yourself. You can’t solve your problems while being embroiled deep within them. Besides you owe it to your daughter to give her an environment where she can grow without fear and persecution” Rain tried to persuade the lady.

“Do you realise that you need a King’s pardon to get a convict freed?” a deep voice echoed in the surroundings. Every demon bowed in response.

“Your Majesty!” Rain bowed. “Will you allow her to leave if I can impress upon a Demon King to pardon this lady?” she stated.

“Hahaha. How ridiculous! No King would ever pardon a traitor”

“In that case shall we make a bet?” Rain bit her lips in a playful manner. Junghorrah felt shivers down his spine upon hearing those words. Rain outplayed him earlier. Her carefree manner was proof enough that she was leading him into another trap. He thought for a while before sharing his observations.

“Betting is a game of odds. It is clear to me that you came here with an intention to plead that traitor’s case. You got your companions to pool their winnings to pay off her deposit. Now you wish to lure me with a bet. That’s swindling not gambling! I won’t fall for it” Junghorrah stated with a grin on his face.

Rain was shocked at those words. A fleeting glance at Wu Lan was sufficient to reveal the full story. They had to get out of this place before the Demon King realised that he had been robbed.

“Since you already figured it out, would you be kind enough to let this poor lady go. She has already suffered a fate worse than death. The Demon King I serve has some use for her” Rain changed the narrative.

“Hahaha! I knew this was a trap! Well played nevertheless! You almost got me again” Junghorrah caressed his beard. “Be gone and take this condemned wretch with you. She is useless to me. I won’t pardon her but I do not see a problem in transferring a prisoner into another King’s dominion. You must warn your King before releasing her restraints. It’s not my problem if the one you serve is stupid enough to trust a traitor” Junghorrah bellowed before disappearing in a pool of blue mist.

“Let’s get out of here while we still can” Rain notified everyone. The guards didn’t bother to stop them when they reached the teleportation hall. Demon King’s word was law!

. . . .

The fortress defenders were rattled upon noticing a 30 yard tall demon gate open inside the courtyard. They relaxed when seven cloaked players, one cloaked demon NPC bounded in chains, and a scared little girl walked out of it.

“You guys are back! You should hurry and catch up with the rest in Azure City within the next 30 minutes or you’ll miss the auctions”

“No worries Commander Rhapsody. We have our own means to get there. Find a way to remove those shackles and show them around the fortress. They’ll be staying here for a while” Black Flame responded and led his group to the conference room. They cleared the membership procedures for Hidden Soul and Brute Spear and finalised their contracts.

“I am glad to welcome both of you to Zero Wing. You two won’t be a part of the main force. There is something more challenging that I have in mind for you guys. Follow me” Both the demon players looked at each other in confusion and bewilderment. What could be more challenging than the main force of a guild? They walked down a few hundred yards into a training room.

“Commander Blade. What’s the status here?”

“Guild leader. It’s a mixed bag. 999 players have completed their trial so far. 400 have managed to succeed. However, contrary our expectations we have 308 Barons and 92 Viscounts. From what I gathered so far, ‘Power of Darkness’ plays no role in their appraisal. They weren’t even allowed to use any berserk skills. We must be missing something” Rampant Blade reported.

“Your assessment is correct. I am surprised we managed 92 Viscounts in the process” Black Flame’s words were cut short when a 5 yard tall demon emerged from the chasm and collapsed on the floor. “Make that 1 Count and 92 Viscounts”. He was pleased with what he saw.

“Those who failed will head for the special training sessions immediately. You’ll get one final chance to clear the trial after three days. If you fail, your slot will be permanently confiscated” Black Flame commanded. However rather than panic and dejection the group swelled with hope and determination. They had already given up on their slots and were enveloped in a pall of gloom when their guild leader offered them a silver lining and a chance to make amends. They resolved to train hard and to improve their combat standards, to succeed in their upcoming trials. Rain and Wu Lan coordinated with Miranda to transfer the 599 Dark God Legion members to Star-Crossed Fortress.

“Congratulations on succeeding your trial. From today all of you will report to Commander Soul. She will help you understand and acclimatise to your demon bodies”

“Commander Soul. I leave this Legion of Darkness in your hands. I hope they don’t disappoint you too much. They have become demons only recently. Violet will help to initiate the trial for you and the rest of the members once the cooldown resets after 5 hours” Black Flame left the room. Hidden Soul and Brute Spear were thunderstruck to find a legion consisting entirely of demon nobles settling into their new bodies. Demon players had to fully break into their demon bodies to qualify for reputation quests. Their understanding of the game was severely shaken.

“Alright! Listen up everybody. There is no better way to introduce yourselves other than through your skills and combat standards. You need to get used to your human bodies before you start breaking into your demon form. It’s me against all of you. Show me what you have got” Hidden Soul declared after tuning the training room setting to freeze the elimination limit at 1 HP.

“Darn. Why are all commanders so arrogant? Even big sis Fire struggled against us”

“By struggle, do you mean wipe the floor with our asses in 30 seconds? You are obnoxious”

“That’s 10 seconds more than the Snow Goddess! Can pass for struggle”

“Alright everybody, focus! I’ll treat you guys to dinner if you manage to survive past 30 seconds”

“Hahaha. I’ll make you eat your words later”

Everybody lay on the floor 18 seconds later. Barely 50 people managed to make it past the 10 seconds mark. Only 10 players remained beyond 15 seconds. They were the only ones who managed to block or dodge almost 50% of Hidden Soul’s strikes.

“Commander Soul, could we join in as well?” Hidden Soul was startled at the question from a girl who looked like a hungry puppy. She was among the group of 200 Dark God Legion members and other 300 core and reserve members who were waiting for their trials. She expected them to be resentful, angry and dejected but found them hungry and excited instead. She finally understood why Zero Wing could churn out so many diamonds despite their lack of experience and average combat standards.

“Sure! Let’s start round two. We’ll keep going non-stop for the next five hours. Would you guys like that?” She stated after tuning the training to marathon mode, allowing players to revive almost instantly and continue the fight. She was humbled by the thunderous response and applause she received.

“Brute. Do you need a personal invitation?” Hidden Soul chuckled before starting a dance of death.

. . . .

“Violet. I can’t decide whether to call it a curse or a blessing in disguise” Black Flame chuckled.

“Guild leader is right. I really pity those poor bastards who cross your path. Besides it’s an opportunity for all of us to train together and grow stronger” Rain noted.

“It’s only 15 days. I need to fight monsters and gain levels. I won’t have the time to train” Violet sighed.

“That’s where you are mistaken. Nobody has a whisper of doubt that you cannot attain 10 levels. We should train for God mode trials using God mode trials. What do you say?” Rain winked at Violet.

“Are you suggesting she fights your death reaper form?” Black Flame was suddenly interested.

“Guild leader, let’s not go there. We have the legacy trial for Star-Crossed Fortress and we are due for another shot at the legacy trial for Starlight Fortress. Besides, I can always summon a couple of dragons for her to bully”

“Oh crap! I am not that strong to take on two dragons at a time”

“You wouldn’t know unless you try. I had to face three of them while trying to learn a legacy topic. It’s actually a good suggestion to force you to learn a skill while in the middle of a combat.” Black Flame interjected.

“Erm.”

“It’s settled. You go train and improve your techniques while we wrap up the auctions. We’ll meet again in a while. Remember to initiate the trials for the rest after five hours” Black Flame ended the meeting and left the room with Rain.

. . . .


	106. Hail the Grandmaster

White River City was bustling with activity. The news of the auctions had spread far and wide. The city was flooded with representatives of various guilds and spies alike. Everybody was trying to figure out what Zero Wing had to offer. Despite numerous and strenuous efforts they were unable to uncover anything at all. Candlelight commerce auctions had shed some light on the product offerings to be expected. However, all the deep pockets were only interested in the surprise that this insane guild was going to throw. Everybody knew that the competition was going to be intense. There were quite a few shady characters that were loitering around Candlelight Shop, offering lines of credit to the invitees at reasonable rates. Some of the invitees had already signed up to avail these services before the auctions began. There was no risk involved in these dealings with the Main God System validating every contract.

. . . . 

Rain was awestruck by the scenery atop the mountain peak that was enveloped in clouds. She could hear the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline. Black Flame emerged from the chasm a while later and gestured at her.

“Quick. We can’t linger here. We’ll be dead if the guardians of the nearby tombs discover us. Let’s head to the shrine and get out of here” Black Flame cautioned. They were on Mount Thunder Jaw, a forbidden land that was sacred to the powers of darkness, nestled deep within the inner reaches of Crooked Islands. They hastily made their way towards a staircase that lay hidden in plain sight. Rain used an opportunity to record her location in the Void Atlas for future forays in the area.

“We barely managed to defeat the guardians of this shrine on our way here. Only 10 out of 600 players in our main and reserve force survived the battle. Luckily everyone was Tier-4 otherwise we would have been team wiped” Black Flame narrated.

“There are no NPCs manning the teleportation gate. Does this mean the guardians will revive after a while?” Rain noted.

“Your guess is as good as mine” Black Flame chuckled before handing her 10 mana stones for powering up the magic arrays.

“Maybe we should explore the two sealed chambers and the hidden underground vault when we have the time”. Black Flame was shocked at those words. He was frozen stiff at the shrine’s site plan that Rain sent him moments ago. He almost forgot to pass her the underwater breathing potion in his hands. They consumed the potions and teleported away.

A pitch black Thunder Eagle rose from the depths of the ocean, approximately five miles east of Dragonheart Island and disappeared into a spatial channel.

. . . . 

Two cloaked figures sprung out of Rain’s temporal retreat, inside Black Flame’s personal forging room in Candlelight Shop. One of them was gawking in astonishment at the complexity of various constructs around her while the other was tearing and overwhelmed at the familiar smell of a forge. She touched everything with her hand, trying to reminisce the glory days of the past with her eyes closed.

“Miss Kilopterica, are you alright?” Rain asked.

“I’m sorry. I never imagined I would find myself inside a forge again. It’s been many years” the demon answered.

“Were you a forger as well?” Xenelia asked

“I used to be an apprentice Smith. I am useless now” the demon sighed. Black Flame felt the ground below his feet shake. Just how good was Rain’s luck to have uncovered a gem like that?

“You are in luck. Guild leader Black Flame is the number one forger in Star Moon Kingdom. I am sure your experience will benefit him immensely” Xenelia tried to calm the sobbing demon.

“Is that why you rescued me? In that case I am really sorry to have wasted your time and efforts. The only way I can help you is by showing you how to do things. I am unable to do that in my crippled state” Kilopterica sighed.

“Lady Kilopterica, you don’t have to feel dejected. It was Rain who rescued you and she has a plan to see to your wellbeing. I’ll leave both of you here to work it out” Black Flame turned to Rain and passed her a few items before leaving the room with Xenelia. They had to work on the big announcement that was convincing enough but didn’t reveal too much information about the fortress capture. They were done with it after over 100 edits, 20 minutes later.

“You are not worried that your enemies will attack the fortress the moment they learn the truth?”

“Either my enemies will attack or I risk the entire western continent attacking it in three hours’ time. No worries. I have a solution to address this impasse without ruffling too many feathers. I need to prepare to welcome some guests in a short while. Release the statement the moment I give you a go ahead. There is no point in letting all that gold go to waste”. Xenelia bid goodbye and left the room. She decided to window shop while waiting for the auctions to begin.

. . . .

“Uncle Long! I am so happy to see you here”

“Little girl. I am glad you still remember this old man. Are we buying some of your potions later?” Silent Wonder gave him a dejected look and sighed before continuing.

“I thought you would be happy to see me. I didn’t know you are only interested in the auction” Wonder purposely threw a tantrum to guilt trip the old man. However, she laughed it off before he could offer a response.

“You must be Commanders Fithalia and MacAffrey. Welcome to White River City. Greetings Commander Rush, glad to meet you again. Please accept my courteous invitation to join guild leader Black Flame for a private meeting. Brother Owl, distribute these passes among the rest of the entourage. We’ll see you guys inside the auction hall 30 minutes later” Wonder instructed Burning Owl before leading the four people away. They were surprised when they entered the meeting room where Black Flame was waiting for them along with two heavyweights with stifling auras.

“Instructors Wildfighter and Crimson Star. It’s a pleasure meeting you guys here” Long Wushang never felt at ease in the presence of these Grand Elders of Violet Sword. However, he was happy that Zero Wing helped him resolve all their issues.

“Let’s start the meeting since everyone is here” Black Flame paused to make eye contact with everyone present in the room.

“I believe all of you trust that Zero Wing is capable of taking control of Star-Crossed Fortress. The fortress has three temporary residences to offer. I have asked you all here to auction them off so that we have one less problem to deal with later” There was complete silence after those words were spoken. The representatives looked at each other in confusion.

“Guild leader Black Flame, aren’t we counting chicken before they hatch?” Wildfighter noted.

“You can rest assured. You need to pay only after we take control of the fortress. If we fail to deliver on our promise we will pay you back an amount equal to your winning bid” Black Flame explained. The confidence behind his words shook everyone present. They gave each other blank looks.

“If you guys are ok shall we start the auction?”

“Sigh! Your insanity sans all limits! I am fine with it” Crimson Star chuckled.

“I trust guild leader Black Flame will deliver on his words. I am in” Hell Rush laughed.

“We are in as well” the rest responded in unison.

“Alright. Everybody will bid in gold coins. We start with the largest temporary residence. You can pay us in gold, or magic crystals or legendary or lesser legendary materials. We’ll provide you a list of materials we are seeking in exchange later”. A 3-dimensional model of the fortress was displayed on the screen, depicting the location and size of the temporary residences inside. Everybody was thunderstruck by the depth and clarity of the footage. Nobody had been able to gather any information so far yet Zero Wing had managed to obtain much more than a bird’s eye view of the entire fortress. They finally understood the reason behind their confidence.

“The bid for the central residence starts at 800,000 gold with a minimum increment of 50,000 gold. Go”

Fervent competition between Violet Sword and Netherworld Empire saw the closing bid being sealed by Netherworld Empire at 1,650,000 gold. Violet Sword won the eastern residence for 1,200,000 gold. Azure edged past Divine Tribe to claim the smallest residence for 650,000 gold. Contracts were signed after the bidding exercise was over. The onus was firmly placed upon Zero Wing to deliver on its promise. Black Flame requested the four guilds to merge their armies outside the fortress and position them at a strategic location within the next 2 hours. They had to ensure that no one followed them.

Hell Rush collected the level 130-180 Epic set equipment and immediately swapped into it. Rest of the players in the room turned green with envy when they saw his aura swell. However, they jumped with joy when they entered the auction hall minutes later.

A giant screen displayed a beautiful Epic armour and its set pieces. News from the auction site leaked onto the game forums wreaking havoc among the players. Zero Wing was crazy enough to offer an epic armour set for auction. Something like this was on expected lines. However, nobody was ready for what came next. It was not an item for sale but the host herself, more precisely the crest pinned to her chest. Everybody attending the auction got up to applaud the first player to become a Grandmaster Forger in the game.


End file.
